our husband/father-less weekend

My hard working husband was out of town last minute this weekend. This was good news to my kids. And yes, they do love their dad and they miss him hysterically when he is gone (they call him about 10 times a day to provide proof of that fact). It's just that my kids know about something I inherited from my mother in law when I joined this family. It's a little syndrome we like to call, "When the Cat is away, the kittens play".
Okay, so I don't like to call it this partly because it sounds so cheesy, but mostly due to my disdain for cats.
But you get the point, right? My mother in law always partied with her kids when her husband was out of town and all the kids have such fond memories of those times, I decided to adopt this into my own little family.
And man, does it work!
We started off with a trip to Chuck E Cheese. All the games are one token there, which we loved. We also went right when it opened and were the only ones there pretty much the entire time. We did lunch at Arbys and giggled hysterically until too many people's heads turned our way. We rented movies, bought candy, and stayed up severely late. Then Saturday we slept in until 8:30! (this is like a record for my children) and we went to a birthday party.
Let me stop here and let you know this was no ordinary birthday party. This was thrown by the raining queens of party throwing, Marla and Heather. My kids look forward to their parties all year. They talk about them all year. They give play by plays of these parties to anyone willing to listen. In short, they will probably end up being the high light of their childhood. (thanks for stealing my thunder, Marla and Heather)
Okay, so the birthday party was fabulous as ever. We had to rent a U haul to carry home all the stuff they got. The whole drive home ( A very long 45 minutes), they would NOT stop talking about the party; The cake was soooo cool. The sprinkler ball was so cool. They had a pool with drinks in it! Did you see what I got in my bag?! (on and on and on for hours).
Saturday evening after showers and teeth brushing and all the Sunday preparations were made , we gathered in my bed and read stories and talked and giggled and laughed and quoted movies and laughed and did impressions and laughed until Jonas said he thought he would have a heart attack. And when I went to turn out the lights waaaaaay too late, Jonas, half asleep, said to me, "Mom? I think it has been a long 2 days. But they were really good long days."
And all I said was, "ditto."
But what I was thinking was, that being a mom to these kids just really rocks.