Eight of my middle school children have gone to church camp, leaving me rattling around the house with my nine younger children, ages 4-11. I have a good many older kids and tonight we are going out.

Our town has a dollar theater and we’re going to see a silly movie, Blades of Glory, just so we can laugh off some of the stress of our lives lately.

It’s not often that we get a chance like this, usually we have a heavy soccer schedule, or I just can’t get out the door what with all the cooking, laundry, gardening, nurturing and everything else I do all day.

My mom will babysit and play Rummicubes with the younger kids, they’ll get to eat popcorn and stay up later.

My 11 year old son, slightly touched with cerebral palsy, physically small, and with a speech problem is the bona fide ‘Man of the House’ this week since we don’t count the 20 year old as he works long hours.

Puffed with pride he just did Javy’s job of taking out the trash and he’s been to the compost pile twice with kitchen scraps, feeding the chickens and he accompanied Grandpa to the UPS store like the old man needed a caretaker. This will all wear off by tomorrow I’m certain and he probably won’t even turn off his bedroom light when he leaves his room, so exhausted by one day of Man Work.

Just for tonight though he’s having fun, I’m going to go have fun with three sons and two daughters, we might even treat ourselves to Krispy Kreme. I don’t care how nutritiously I usually eat, or how many fat grams are involved, some times you just got to have one donut. Like I ever eat just one. Hello, it’s Krispy Kreme for pete’s sake.

I don’t care if its five days until my retirement check gets here, thank goodness we have a dollar theater, I can scrounge up that much money from pockets in the dirty clothes pile.

And my kids will look back on tonight and remember it just like they’ve looked back on all our family events fondly, even the small ones like tonight.