Tag - you're it!

One of the most wonderful things about having only one child in a two-parent family is that there is still some possibility that you can have time to yourself without overwhelming your spouse or having to barricade the children in a padded room devoid of sharp or heavy objects. I know that sounds selfish, but I was an only child myself, so I'm expected to be selfish and self-centered, right?

One of the unspoken rules in our house is that doing important or necessary work around the house trumps child care duties. So, if you've had enough of singing a particular song (yesterday's request - Yankee Doodle) or reading a particular book (yesterday's request - Clifford's Neighborhood) over and over and over again, then you can suddenly find something around the house that just needs to get done (laundry, cooking lunch/dinner, cleaning the living room, finding a new driver for the scanner) and hand off child care duties to the other spouse for an hour or so. There is such a thing as abuse of this privilege, though, and the punishment is not pretty. As a matter of fact, I think it's almost time for a "girls weekend" in New York...