  Do you remember how great Saturdays were when you were little? God, I loved them. And why? Because I would get up at 5:30 -- the only children's program on at that time was a Spanish language variety show called Sonrisas -- and make myself a bowl of Cap'n Crunch so formidably gigantic that the roof of my mouth would be ripped up entirely until the following Saturday, when I would begin the process again.
Saturdays aren't that great anymore. S is home -- I wait all week for him to have a day off -- yet I find managing the different priorities of having to do something "real" because it's the weekend, stresses me. I want to go out alone with ALa71 and drink Starbucks vanilla bean frappuccinos and make fun of people under our breath. And I often do. Sweet escape! Of course, then, someone else's kids are acting up and ruining everyone's peace. .. giving you sweet memories of home .
. .
not .
. .
I also feel pressure on weekends to give P some kind of a play date or Cherished Childhood Experience. (Reviewing our own childhoods, ALa71 and I decided that this was a rare occasion for us .
. .
our moms basically let us out the front door in the mornings, called us in for meals, and made us come back in when it got dark.
We never wore shoes -- our feet were solid black from June through September! Alas, the world is not like that anymore. ) But Working Parents want Cherished Childhood Experiences for their kids, too, so every child-friendly venue is packed to the gills at weekends .
. .
which is why we usually visit those places on weekdays, but then the damn school groups are there .
. . .
(" Britney! Britney! Sit next to me on this caterpillar! No, not you , Damien .
. .
) On weekends, S wants to sit at his computer all day and complains when he can't, because P is on him like white on rice. There are more dishes to do. The laundry piles up. We tend to make dental appointments for Saturday mornings because there's no way to manage a four-year-old when you're prone in chair with a stranger's fingers in your mouth. Sometimes I have church liturgy (though not this weekend, thank God, because I have to get up really early for that). And if you're away -- well, if you chance to vacation -- I need only send a plea to the mothers in my reading audience to seal the assertion that vacation is vacation for everyone except mama, who is juggling sunscreen, sippie cups, "my favorite blankie and my new monkey Baby Junior!
Where is he?! " :::wailing::: who, when she finally gets to sit down in the hotel and crack the cover of a magazine, because Precious is finally busy with the seventy-five dollars worth of stuff you bought for her on the boardwalk, has her beloved come out of the bathroom in his towel, saying, "Did you bring Q-Tips .
. . ?
" It doesn't all add up to the ultimate in leisure time. So I find myself thinking back to ultimate Saturdays of my distant youth, of which there were many.
I met a boy on the bus in 10th grade. It was the early eighties, so the fact that he wore dark-denim pin-striped tapered jeans was an asset rather than a liability. He had dark hair, blue eyes, a nice smile, and he liked me. He had another girlfriend -- that was kind of a drag -- but those types of things are fraught with high drama anyway, so she was out of the picture in time for a beautiful October day, when he came over my house and kissed me on the tweed couch. Right before we went to the movies -- to see Terror in the Aisles. That was a good Saturday. I wonder what happened to him? As it turned out, he got his other girlfriend pregnant (now! now! all I ever did was kiss him on the couch), and he has a kid now who is in his teens. God! Now I feel old. 
