This weekend was all about big fun for AJ, or so he thought. Little does he know that some of the rest of us had fun too.

On Friday, in an attempt to shake us out of our late winter funk, AJ and I made the spur-of-the-moment decision to go see Curious George. And when I say spur-of-the-moment, I mean we got into the car at the time the film was supposed to start. Fortunately, we are not far from the theater and thanks to the ever-expanding previews, we didn't miss a minute of the film.

The movie was charming. It was almost old-fashioned. There was no 3-D animation, no jokes about flatulence, and the monkey did not speak English or even skateboard. The art was faithful in spirit to the books, with their limited color palette and stylized cityscapes. And while I think the plot moved a little slowly for AJ, we both loved the music. AJ was happy any time George was on screen. My only complaint was that even animated films aimed at preschoolers are not immune to product placement.

Even more than the film, AJ was taken with the ritual of moviegoing – the 1 litre drink dubbed "small," the salty, greasy popcorn bag filled so full that it inevitably spills on the floor where it crunches underfoot, the paper tickets, torn, and then stuffed into pockets to be found months later when we will reminisce about the winter afternoon at the movies.

Saturday I got a day to myself to work. The husband took AJ to a science fair in which the son of a close friend was participating. Then the four of them went to a science museum and the zoo and looked at real monkeys and drank Icees. AJ came home with a cherry-red smile and a bag full of science experiments to try at home – a perfect day for him.

I did not get nearly as much done as I wished, as I was feeling antsy. It was a beautiful, sunny and relatively warm day and I couldn’t seem to sit still. I kept sprinting out for an errand or to check on the daffodils (an inch taller than last week), the pussywillow (their fuzzy buds are just emerging), the hellebore (great fat buds! Flowers soon!) But if it wasn't the most productive day, it was lovely to have some time to myself.

Yesterday we headed into my campus to attend a party for a good friend of mine who is now teaching at the school metonym refers to as Aardvark. My friend is a poet as well as a scholar, and was in town for a reading and conference on poetics. I saw many old friends and drank wine decadently early in the afternoon. It was very much an "in the room women come and go, talking of Michelangelo" sort of afternoon. Much poetry and music and academics and ecology and liberal politics were discussed. One of the other guests, the former sister-in-law of my friend, approached me and told me how much she enjoyed the concerts I conducted years ago (my friend sang in the choir I directed).

The husband and AJ came too. The husband is an excellent party guest, far better than I at mingling. But AJ won the prize. L., another friend who hosted the party, gave him a personal tour of the house, including the household’s pet rabbit. She also unearthed a box of Playmobil toys (their former owners, her own two sons, having abandoned them for more grown-up pursuits) that kept him busy for hours. He also listened carefully to L.'s gentle warnings about her 125-year-old stairs and passed on the message to anyone who approached the staircase, "Be careful. The stairs were built in 1880. See how the 8th step is curvy?" Thanks to safety officer AJ, there were no staircase accidents. Only snow, which served to make the party feel cozy and also to make the trip home slightly treacherous.

This morning, though, we found a white world. We plowed to school on foot, carrying AJ's red sled, which he slid on occasionally, when the snow-cover allowed. We tumbled into school pink-cheeked, pulled off AJ's boots with a pop, and stuffed him into his shoes just in time for class to begin.

And now, laundry. And bills. And the memory of a winter walk to keep me warm.

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