Girls Night

With my husband and son away in Antigua, my daughter and I have enjoyed what felt like a week long slumber party. As soon as I got home from work each night my girl would inveigle me into a game of Family Feud Fast Money, the latest Facebook craze at her school. We would lie side by side on my bed and put our heads together to play rounds of the game, laughing at the silliness of our answers and other people's answers as we racked up points and virtual money for her and her friends (don't ask, I don't really understand how the community part of the game works). Then when the free rounds were done and the computer began asking us to buy the next rounds, we'd retire for the night, and lie head to head on the pillows, talking about everything, dropping stories and confidences, the convo flowing anywhere it pleased. After a while we would decide we were hungry and head to the kitchen to make dinner. The first night, we looked at each other and said, "Doesn't this feel just like a girls' sleepover?"

My girl would then set up to do her homework at the kitchen counter while we cooked dinner—okay, while she cooked. She likes doing it more than I do. She was on her laptop at the counter, books and papers spread around her, the pot boiling with meatless chili or pasta and some delicious sauce behind her, while I was a few feet away on my laptop in the living room, adding up columns and columns of numbers for our audit next week. At some point we'd break for dinner. Later, we'd watch our taped shows, Top Chef, Modern Family, Gray's Anatomy, both of us wrapped in blankets. Eventually we would start to nod off, and then we would pad down the hallway trailing our blankets to get ready for bed. She slept next to me each night. Before turning out the lights we would carefully check and recheck our phone alarms since we were flying without a net this week, meaning my husband wasn't there to make sure we awoke on time. He does that for us every single day.

Speaking of flying, my husband and son are up in the air right now, on their way back to a city that is softly being blanketed by snow. I hope their plane lands before the worst of it. During the last snowstorm, all the airports closed down and flights were diverted everywhere. I hope their travel day is simpler than that. Excited to see them!