I began rejoicing the other day, Monday, to be specific, when I realized while walking through Pier 1 Imports that Logan doesn’t in fact start back at school on the 4th of January, but the 5th! That’s tomorrow, folks! One more whole, extra day with him home and nothing, zero, zilch on the calendar to interfere with a perfectly lovely time together before the start of 2nd semester! Thank the maker! There might have even been a skip in my step through the  rest of my way around the candles, mirrors, statues and dish-wear, heck… I can hardly remember what I looked at because I was too busy planning our very special last-day-of-winter-vacation-at-home-together-day.

I felt like I was reinacting the scene from the movie, Elf,when Buddy plans his activities that he’d do with his dad after being reunited with him. We’ll bake cookies in our jammies, we’ll play games, we’ll read stories, maybe even write one together…the possibilities are endless!

Well, let me tell you how the morning has gone thus far. As I sit here, it is 1:19 p.m. and I can say that I have successfully built 5 dozen chocolate chip cookies…all in between my bouts in Hero Factory Hero Training (in which it is made perfectly clear that I am a rookie, as I leap fearlessly from room to room, with my foam number one finger affixed over my hand, trying to convince my superiors – L & E – of course, that I am good enough to fight in actual battle with them…); potty stops every hour in an effort to train Mr. Eli as soon as possible; impromptu dance-offs in the kitchen each time Michael Jackson pops up on Pandora Internet Radio, and policing the stash of newly discovered PEZ dispensers that Chris found on clearance at Walmart yesterday for $0.75.

Quality time? I’m pretty sure it could be. It depends on how I look at it. I was about to give Eli a little quiet time with a favorite cartoon of his so that big brother and I could work on a book that he has been authoring…but Eli’s cartoon looked just too appealing to pass up-thus my few minutes here and their few minutes down there. Maybe it’s a good thing. Oh, did I mention that I caught them fighting light-sabers on top of the kitchen table earlier? Yea, I did.

I feel like God is with His sense of humor today as He is preparing my achy heart to send Logan back to school tomorrow.  One more brotherly fight over a match box car; one more fearless leap resulting in resounding crashing noises; one more begging and pleading for just one more cookie, candy, ice cream, fruit snack…one more argument over this or that or just one exra thing…tomorrow morning may just turn out to be OK.

Did I mention that I love my children yet today? I love my children today.