This weekend has been, so far, a mixture of total suckage of the hyper-anxiety inducing variety and big time family fun. In the former camp has been the realization that we�ve been in denial about the state of our finances and also the fight I had with my husband this morning, the result of parenting exhaustion, that ended with sulking and door slamming on all sides. In the latter has been a night spent watching the Spongebob Squarepants movie on the sofa with a giant bowl of popcorn with AJ and my husband and mother-son bowling for AJ�s school this afternoon, at which I tied for first in our lane with a six-year-old and a score of 96, and AJ won a door prize of a tin of popcorn nearly as big as he is with a Hershey bar and a giant bar of grape Laffy Taffy taped to the top.

AJ�s friend C. from across the street is now here. They have played basketball, had a snack and are now playing Hide and Seek. I should be thinking about dinner, but I am not in the mood and am instead sitting in my favorite chair, which has been recently relocated from the family room to my bedroom, where I can stare out the window at the enormous linden tree and imagine I am in a treehouse.

The family things are good, because they make the other stuff feel less important, but the anxiety is still there. I am trying to pretend it is not, as I�m sure we will see in the smiling photo they took of AJ and I at the bowling alley in front of the sign, right before AJ slipped off the step and into the lane and danced in his slippery shoes. The best thing for him about bowling is sliding on the floor. The best thing for me is that feeling of letting the ball go, of heaving a heavy weight off your hand, leaving a sense of curious lightness while all you can do is wait and see whether you have hit the mark.

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