all the noise, noise, noise!

Saturdays are not a day I normally look forward to being a wife of a boarding school teacher.  I am always envious of the couples who work the 9-5 jobs with weekends off and all the lounging, house tending, errand running things that they do.  Their lives seem so simple and easy.  For us, a Saturday can mean many different things.  1. Saturday classes (yes, someone thought this was a brilliant idea in boarding school...really drive the point home) 2. athletics, i.e.: games, and practices 3. On duty...stay in the dorm and make sure everyone is safe and accounted for.  4.  you name it...kid gets in trouble, parent calls to speak with teacher, kids knocking on our door...the list can go on...you get the point.

This weekend we are #1 and #3...Saturday classes and on duty.  Oh joy.  I woke up crabby.  It is sometimes very hard to give up any private family time that everyone else takes for granted....a quiet house, a run to the market, a little tv time.  I am home with the kids (just like every day of the week)...oh, and I am not complaining about my children, I am just saying it gets a little difficult when the reward is so little.  So, I decided to have some friends come over for a play date.  There is no house cleaning that takes place, or laundry and errands...there is no sending my husband to home depot to get some things for the house or any normal life things that happen.  Instead, we have a wonderful play date with some friends we have not been able to see much this year.  It was so nice to have them over and the kids were for the most part very well behaved.

The play date is over and now Ava has a birthday party to go to.  I take her to that and am again surrounded by kids very well behaved and they are all having a great time.

We come home and now Ava is cranky from too much sugar, manny is hungry and crying and we go to the dining hall for dinner with a million teenagers.  They are walking with us as we walk to the "DH", and they are being silly, too loud, unaware of anyone else....(like they are even aware of me and my family).   We go and stand in a long line to get our meal...I yell at Ava in line because she is dancing around and being a little rambunctious.  Manny cries through practically the whole dinner...who can blame him.  The lighting is bad in the dining hall and it makes me anxious.  We walk home in the dark and I am cold and unsatisfied with the meal I ate a little too much of.  I lock myself in the office and bask in the quiet as I write this and re-live the day that was good and bad and wonder how it could be both.

 I am changing gears now so I can go take photos at the semi-formal with kids who dance so inappropriately it embarrasses me.  I just want to close our door, get into my pj's, put my own kids to bed and have a glass of wine.   Oh, well...someday.  For now, I will deal with all the noise.