daily

Apparently the power went out during the Super Bowl last night. I say apparently because I was blissfully unaware of all things Super Bowl related. The only reason I knew there was a game on was because my husband was eating out of crinkly bags while drinking beer and because there were exactly four of us at the tennis club at 4pm…. I was the only American. Apparently my lack of interest in the Super Bowl renders me unpatriotic.

The day was glorious and all of us spent the morning relaxing in our own ways. The boys went to baseball and Jane and I went to an event that Make Up Forever hosted, you bring in your own bag of makeup and their make up artists show you how to apply it. Jane waltzed in with 20 pounds of goo including this kit (which I may actually steal) and we had a fabulous time learning how to use it. Those super bright pigments (and a little bit of plum eyeliner) got us looking like this

Pretty natural I’d say. Again, she’s still not taller than I am (yet). Only one of us was wearing heels.

If you do the makeover and then use your picture as your facebook or twitter profile they give you a free mascara. I need the world to know that I’m still using Chanel mascara (even though it basically looks like false eyelashes… which is much too much during the day) because of my social media hiatus.

That all wrapped up a little late so we zoomed to the house where I waved at Mr. G and the rest of the men, dumped my daughter off, realized my son was feeling crummy again so I paused to make him a smoothie and a give him a kiss and then zipped out the door to play tennis. Oh, and since you asked… I won. I wish I could say the same thing about the team that Mr. G put money on.

After tennis I attempted to liberate the kids from potato chips, football and pizza but failed miserably when Alexander who wanted to stay home. Jane and I went to the French Cafe at the corner and shared the usual: steak tartare (her favorite), a cheese plate (my favorite), a glass of cabernet sauvignon for me and a decaf latte for Jane. She is allowed one decaf coffee drink a month. Periodically I make everyone google “coffee teeth” and then we all scream eeewwwwww together, one a month is a fine number. I love a meal alone with each of my kids. They sort of perk up and become more conversant. We talk about school and sports and the kids in their classes. When Jane gets going I just do my best to keep up with the words and to really hear what she’s saying.

Today Alexander didn’t make it through the whole school day. I wasn’t surprised when the school called me, he’s not sick but he’s not well and if this week wasn’t ERB testing I’d probably have given him an extra day of rest. I didn’t though and that was clearly a mistake. So I found myself sitting in a restaurant with my son less than 24 hours after my delightful dinner with my daughter. He talks less than she does but says just as much. We talked about school, books, baseball and tennis. We talked about travel and pets, Grandparents and the Superbowl. It’s a different kind of listening with a son. He ordered a bacon burger with barbecue sauce and I ordered a vegan mung bean burrito as a way of making amends for eating a raw cow and her milk for supper the night before.

Alexander speaks the way he eats. Plainly, enthusiastically and honestly. I listen to his words and know that I can take them at face value and then I leave deep valleys of silence in lieu of conversation. He fills them in and I feel the fullness of him. I’m clearly the luckiest mother on earth.