Saturday, February 6, 2010

Date Night

My Friday night consisted of eating fast food (not on the Weight Watchers diet, I know) and renting a 1991 action flick, with my 11-year-old. I love that my son still wants to hang out with me, and I have to remind myself that this won't be the case forever. Oh, I know he'll always love me, and will still do stuff with me, but at some point it won't be as willingly, and I'll have to face the fact that I'm second fiddle to the call or text of a buddy. There will come a time where he'd rather be playing video games with the guys, or going to see the latest action flick with a whole group of friends, and his mom will be the last resort, if things don't pan out.

I remember, because I was there once myself. Uh, you want me to stay home? On a Friday night? With my parents and younger siblings? No way. I think I would've planned a social activity for every minute of the weekend (and weeknights, too) if my parents would have let me - football games Friday night, spending the night with my best friend... "oh, but can't I stay with her on Saturday too? Her parents don't care!". I was on the go, all the time.

Of course since there were six kids in my family by the time I was a teen (we ranged in age from 15 to newborn) I have to say -if we're being honest here- that I don't think my folks missed spending good, quality time with me when I was gone, I think it was more that perhaps I wouldn't be there if chores needed to be done! It is definitely different having an only child rather than a large family, in many ways. One thing I do miss for Jace is having other siblings around his own age. Our parents were always crazy busy keeping up with all of us, but it was great having built-in friends right there at home all the time.

Friday nights are usually my and Jace's night to hang out together. Dave likes to catch up on all of his fishing shows and other stuff, and last night he headed to a boat show with a buddy. So when I picked Jace up from his friend's house, I threw out the option of McDonald's and a movie, and it was met with an excited reply of "Sweet, Mom!". Since we had rented the latest Terminator flick with Dave and Neil last weekend, Jace wanted to see if we could rent some of the earlier movies, and watch the whole series. So we watched 1991's Terminator: Judgement Day and ate cheeseburgers and french fries for dinner. And it was, indeed, a sweet night.

2 comments:

Tara said...

Jace is the best. He is the sweetest 11 year old I know. I love that kid!!
And, for the record, you were missed for more than your help with the chores. I missed you when you weren't around!!

nancy said...

Thanks, Tara! We kids were all close, weren't we? Like I said, it was great growing up with a bunch of siblings... and I appreciate it even more now that we all have kids of our own!