The Twilight Zone

Yesterday I felt a bit like I had entered into the Twilight Zone.  My older three were home from their respective schools, I had a pot of corn chowder on the stove and I had a wild hair to make an Apple Pound Cake.  So far, nothing quite out of the ordinary.

Then, once I started pulling out my ingredients, my three oldest all sat down at the kitchen table to do their homework.  This gave me a start, but I tried to shake off that feeling of uneasiness.  I mean SURE in the past all of my children have been there doing homework.  But never all at once. It was, I was positive, a recipe for disaster. Still, I kept a watchful eye on events as they unfolded.

What ensued was mind boggling.  Not only were my 16, 14, and 12 year old within close proximity of each other, they were...dare I say it....actually conversing with each other in a playful yet respectful manner.  Oh, don't get me wrong, they WERE acting like siblings...just not siblings to each other.  There was laughter, respectful teasing (because frankly...our family simply can not NOT tease).  I believe there was an incident with a spray water bottle and more laughter.  My oldest daughter sang throughout it all.   Silly little ditties.  All the while, I was buttering and flouring my bundt pan (how DO you get flour onto the center portion of a bundt pan?), banging the pan the sink to move around the flour.  My point?  It was NOT a quiet, study period.  It was fun, and boisterous, and raucous and STILL they got their homework done.

Then, everyone bolted.  The girls had dance practice for the football game tonight.  My middle daughter then had gun safety.  The boy went to the high school girls varsity volleyball game (dressed in garbage bags...have I mentioned how much I am enjoying him lately?).  They were all home by 9pm when we watched a bit of the Vikings football game before shoo-ing the younger two off to bed.  Without an argument.

The twilight zone...it can usually  go one of two ways:  good or bad.  And occasionally you are surprised when it goes a good way and leaves you with a feeling of utter contentment.