Several hours - I've been writing blogs for hours and hours and hours - and publishing none of them - blah. And I just can't make it come out - somehow something isn't quite ready.

I had a nice weekend full of fun fun family Fletcher things. Which, after the week we had, I wasn't sure was possible.

Whoever tells you that being unemployed, staying home and taking care of a family is easy work is full of crap. Absolute complete crap.

My sons are 6 and 9. The six year old has attitude and a slight speech impediment and YELLS absolutely everything all the time. I think its so he can be better understood.

My 9 year old has a quick temper and the attitude of someone of the ripe old age of 12. Both hate everything and are likely bored already before anything has even had the possibility of starting.
Now, I don't profess to have ever been a model child. I was boring to the nth degree. As a matter of fact, when I was a teenager my mother took me aside and said that if I didn't go out and get into some trouble that I was doomed to never have any fun at all.

I had that same attitude they have and I too was perpetually bored. But nowadays kids are multi-tasking boredom.

My kids like to flip through a magazine while they play their gameboys and watch cartoons. They listen to music while they read a book. They swim and use their waterguns while the gameboy charges. They call their friends and talk on the phone about pokemon while they battle each other real time on line. Its near impossible to keep them entertained.

By Friday afternoon this week I was ready to duct tape them to the wall until they withered up and died.

I could do no right. No one would pick up after themselves. The food I made was boring, their lives were a misery and it was all my fault.

But saturday, things seemed to change. We went to karate like normal, then mini-putt, the batting cages, had a dinner that everyone one ate(!), went night swimming in the little backyard pool, lit the tiki torches and watched a movie that we ALL enjoyed. My husband made me mixed rum pomegranite cocktails that we drank outside watching the kids and we talked - really talked about the future.

It was really really nice.

No one fought - no one tried to kill anyone!

I know, I was shocked too!

Today even...we had baseball practice in the rain - and it was fun and no one complained. Everyone made their own lunch (!) and even cleared their area afterwards. Ben graduated from yellow belt to orange at karate and although the ceremony and display were painfully long and exceedingly dull - we all got through it. We even went to Dairy Queen afterwards like a normal family.

Today we went to the farm market near home and bought corn on the cob, tomatoes (both hot house no doubt but who cares!) and peas, radishes and baby potatoes. We had fresh veggies with herbs from my herb garden and beer can chicken. It smelled so good that even I had a bite of the chicken (and then I remembered it was chicken and ew).

It sounds so mundane writing it down but these are the kind of weekends that I aspire to. Where not much happens. We laugh. No one tries to beat anyone with a shovel - simple things (not that that EVER happened!)

I hope that these are the weekends that the kids remember.

I remember weekends like that with my parents.

I remember driving out to Pletch's farm on the highway with my Mom. She would be wearing her bathing suit (we had an inground pool) and wouldn't get out of the car - so I had to! And I would get 3-4 DOZEN corn on the cob and a basket of tomatoes. And that is what we would have for dinner in the dead of summer.

My mom had this thing she did for the corn - see if you can follow these instructions. Wash out one miracle whip jar - it must be miracle whip because the mouth of the jar needs to be big enough. Place one pound of butter in the miracle whip jar. Cover the butter with boiling water.

Dip your corn into the butter/water sludge. Butter should adhere to the corn. Devour. This mix can be remicrowaved for future use but in our house it barely lasted the one meal!

Family and fun isn't all about food - but to me it is intertwined.

One of the things that I want for my little family is to have big extended family. Oops. My family lives a million miles from here. I think I need to build one from friends. You can do that you know.