Quiet Sunday Morning

It's quiet this morning. Ben and Jake are at their dad's house and Zachary and his good friend are here munching in the other room on their most favorite sleepover breakfast- fried egg sandwiches.

These two are the sweetest of boys. They played video games last night for a while then went up to Zachary's room- and Zachary played his saxophone for his pal. Christmas songs.

Earlier in the night, Zachary had come up to me and said, Mom, you are so stressed.

I was. I couldn't deny it.

You need to relax, he said.

Too much to do, I said to him. He and his friend looked at me and shook their heads. I made no sense to their eleven year old minds. Recently, Zachary had compared me to Zeus and himself to Atlas.

You rule the sky, he had said. I just hold it up.

Such a middle child. And how foolish I must have sounded, as ruler of the sky, saying I could not take time to relax on a Saturday night. He knew he didn't HAVE to hold up the sky. There was Hercules to be tricked, after all.

Last week was absolutely insane for me. So much going on, many things to do. I've hardly had time to breathe. I need to slow down today. Take a walk. Read the paper.

And listen to the collective wisdom of two fabulous eleven year old boys.