One Summer At Home went black while I had a girls’ (old ladies’?) weekend with my friends from college. Nine of us went to my friend Jess’s gorgeous house in Kennebunkport and spoiled ourselves with wine, lobster, and reminiscing. I definitely missed the turds, but I can’t tell you how refreshing it is to not hear anyone whine about anything for three days straight.

I got back Sunday night, and was delighted to hear that the kids had been excellent Thursday through Saturday, and not great on Sunday, which had led to a full day of house cleaning. Win-win, am I right? So yesterday, I was back on duty, and assuming that the kids would have learned their lesson about whining/fighting from a day of hard labor. Well, I’m sorry that I made an ass out of u and me, guys.

The day started off okay. (It always does, guys; that’s how they fool you.) After breakfast, the kids were psyched that it was raining, because that meant they go to play their new Wii game, Star Wars the Clone Wars: Lightsaber Duel. I don’t know if you remember playing Wii tennis or bowling back in 2002 or whenever people actually played Wii, but I remember sweating a lot. And that was just bowling. So imagine a light saber duel against a Jedi master. They got really sweaty and angry.

When I sent Matty a video of them playing the game, he said, “looks violent.” What did you expect from a game with the word “Wars” in the title twice, Matty? Hazy realized that the closer you get to the other player, the better chance you have at hitting them with your virtual light saber. George learned the hard way that there’s also a better chance at getting hit with a real-life Wii controller. George ended up getting pissed because he was 1) sweaty, 2) losing most of the duels, and 3) repeatedly getting whacked with a Wii console. That led to a bunch of fighting/whining.

I decided we needed to get out of the house. I had them suit up in their rain jackets, with big plans to walk to the subway (1/2 mile) to go to Chinatown to get our underwater photos from a few weeks ago. We made it about three blocks of George jumping in every puddle (which, admittedly, was pretty awesome) and then both kids complaining they were cold and wet. So we turned around and walked back. They changed into dry clothes and we hopped into the car.

And by “hopped”, I mean Hazy and I waited for about 10 minutes in the car while George put on long pants. That led to George whining about how it was hard to put on pants all by himself. It’s a charmed life when your biggest challenge is putting on pants.

In Chinatown, I remembered why I didn’t want to drive, as we circled around the worst driving neighborhood in the worst driving city in America for about 15 minutes. As we were exhausted from the not-walking and the whining, we stopped for lunch before picking up the photos. Once again, my kids crushed an impressive amount of Chinese food. I think if we just ate every meal in Chinatown, they might be in the normal range of the weight percentile chart.

After lunch, we walked the three blocks to CVS in the pouring rain. I believe it took approximately three hours to walk those three blocks, two hours of which I spent yelling, “Come on, George! Stay with Mama!”There was definitely whining about how it was too far to walk.

At one point, George did a puddle jump right beside two innocent bystanders. We did finally make it and secured our underwater photo masterpieces. Stay tuned for that post.

While I was gone, Matty instituted a policy where if George whines, he takes a nap. I dialed it up to 11 and decided we should all nap. Of course, what actually happened was I was the only one who napped, woken up frequently by George whining and calling out from his room, “Can I get up now?” Hazy read in her room, which is cool with me.

After “naps,” I buried my rage deep down inside my Secret Rage Place, and I whipped out the piece de resistance, this 1977 Star Wars game I bought at a flea market in Maine. You won’t be surprised to hear that I won or that George got mad that he lost. The kids fought about handing off the spinner (George wouldn’t), reaching over each other (Hazy kept doing it to get the spinner from George), and perceived injustice (“Why did you have to send my Luke and Leia home?!”), but still shockingly asked if we could play again. No, no we can’t. Secret Rage Place is running out of space.

After a quick dinner of leftovers, I read a graphic novel about Star Wars Academy to the kids and put them to bed early. But first, Hazy insisted on leading us through a guided meditation (my 8-year old is 80), which I have to admit was pretty awesome. We imagined putting our “busiest thoughts” into leaves that floated down a river.  I didn’t get any photos because I’m pretty sure snapping photos on your phone is the opposite of Buddhist meditation.

After the kids were in bed, I went to finish up some laundry before relaxing with some wine and GoT, and promptly fell down the basement stairs. It’s good to be home, guys.