saturday night

Gary is slumped by the sofa, feeling depressed because there are no random grapes to chow.
Hubby is trying to appear engrossed in some Disney Pixar thing so he doesn't have to engage with the children. And I'm hiding out behind the laptop.
Kids are on their second DVD of the day. I know, I'm a bad parent, etc. But, really, after three hours of birthday party today (Twins) and getting up at 5.30 am for the birthday Everest flight (Son), none of them are really capable of anything involving either hand-eye coordination or speech now. Just hanging on in for the last twenty minutes until bedtime.
But that's what DVDs are for, isn't it? For when everyone is tired/sad/ill/stressed?
A friend of mine had her youngest child off school yesterday with a fever. That is exactly the scenario where I'd put Charlie and the Chocolate factory on (or possibly Happy Feet, which is also really long and tedious enough to send ill children off to sleep), and get on with some admin. My friend, who is a Good Mother, said that when, oh, let's call her little Q - when little Q woke up with a fever and she decided not to send her to school, she and little Q had a teddy bears' picnic in bed, played cards, did some colouring, a couple of puzzles and then by lunchtime little Q was saying she felt a lot better and wanted to go back to school. Well, I'm not surprised, I bet all that activity wore her out, she probably couldn't wait to get back into the classroom for a bit of a rest!
Ooh, and now it's only five minutes until bedtime...