With Boo home for a week, I am on official vacation.

Let him deal with the rigors of parenthood. I’ve had enough. I’m all about sitting back and watching the carnage fun as my darling chitlens run him ragged.

I chase my kids around trying to stuff vegetables down their throats while wrestling the sugar bowl out of their little monkey grasp enough on my own that I have no problem releasing the parental reigns into his control for the few days he is back.

Let him deal with it them. Cuz if you mess with that bull, it’s guaranteed you are gonna get the horn.

Wait, that came out wrong.

In some rare family bonding time the other night, Boo and I gathered up our young ones and headed out to a local diner for a quality family outing. One where I wasn’t required to cook and my family wasn’t required to choke back the charred remains of whatever dinner offering I managed to concoct.

It was a treat for everyone.

I took great pleasure in being surrounded by my children, who, because they live in great fear of their fabulous father, were on their very finest behaviour. Boo simply enjoyed our company, thankful for the opportunity not to have to eat something wrapped in plastic purchased at the local gas station on his way to work.

As I listened to my children happily chat to their father, ratting on my every move in an effort to make themselves look like poor hard done by children living with a crazy tormenting mother filling him in on the small details of their every day life, I reveled in the moment.

It’s not very often we are all together as one small happy family and I like to suck the moments up like a child trying to slurp the last remnants of a strawberry milkshake through a plastic straw, desperate to make every last drop count.

It’s these soft family moments which keep me going when my children are chasing me around with pointy sticks, giving me the energy to run a little harder, a little faster.

All too quickly, the moment was over and reality started knocking at our door. The demands of real life intruded and obligations such as soccer practice and games and home work and bed times cut short our quality family time together.

We all piled into the car, as Frac and I had soccer commitments to take us away from time with our Boo.

With the kids in the back seat, Boo and I sat up front talking, when Frac sat forward and started massaging his father’s shoulders as Boo drove. Boo looked over and grinned at me and asked how come I wasn’t as well trained as his children.

Fric took her cue and from behind me reached out to start massaging my shoulders. Whatever her brother could do, she could do better.

It felt like bony little claws trying to rip the flesh from my bones rather than a pleasant massage. I tried to enjoy it but when it felt like she had reached into the back of my spine to rip out my brainstem, I had had enough.

“Ouch Fric! That hurts! Stop it. Thanks for the thought but I can live with out this torture you think is a massage.” I swear I had lost all feeling in my upper extremeties at this point.

Pouting, Fric sat back in her seat and said “But I massage daddy this way all the time. I was trying to be nice to you.” Frac continued to happily massage his father while making faces at her to let her know of his vastly superior massaging prowess.

“I know honey, and I appreciate it, but I guess I’m more er, delicate than your daddy. I don’t need a massage, but thanks for the thought sweetie,” I tried to placate.

Fric wasn’t having any of my platitudes. Damn her preteen hormones.

Leaning forward between her father’s seat and my own, she made sure to look at me as to wring the maximum amount of maternal guilt out of my soul.

“I don’t understand Mom. Daddy likes it when it goes hard and deep. He says there is no better feeling.”

Boo started sputtering and immediately went red faced just as my eyeballs exploded.

“She means with massage. I like it hard and deep when she massages me,” he rushed to clarify.

Fric, completely oblivious to the sexual innuendo of the situation, sat back in her seat, to happily twist her brother’s nipples.

Aw, the innocence of childhood. It’s a powerful thing.

Powerful enough to make Boo’s head pop right off and roll down the highway.

Me, I’m just gonna savour this sweet family moment and be thankful that for once it wasn’t my head bouncing down the road.

Heh.