Screen Ban

We have a Screen Ban at our house from 11am-5pm. This is a new thing for us, just started the day after school got out for the summer. Music is allowed during this time but no other internet, no TV (exception granted for the Olympics), no video games, no movies.

It’s been a good move, though the kids might beg to differ. Of course it isn’t perfect- they complain, sneak whenever our backs are turned, watch TV at friends’ houses. But other things have happened too. Sometimes they’ll hang out on my bed and read while I’m folding laundry. The dogs get an extra walk. We go to the pool. They play board games. They help me in the kitchen. They make stuff up.

#5 asked if he could make a fort recently during the Screen Ban hours. An indoor fort.

I was a big fan of forts when I was a kid, both indoor and outdoor. Indoor forts we made by stringing sheets and sleeping bags over artfully arranged furniture. My sister’s brilliant contribution was the addition of a box fan, placed just so in order to extend a sheet into a “room”. Outdoor forts we made with whatever wood we could find in the patch of woods behind our house: scrap lumber, branches, sticks, logs. Outdoor forts rocked because you could add to them over the days; you didn’t have to dismantle them to give your mom the sheets and chairs back.

#5 mostly makes indoor forts because we don’t have a yard or woods per se, unless you count the property that doesn’t belong to us and contains all the trees that keep landing on our house. He did make an outdoor fort once but I literally couldn’t get to it when he wanted to show it to me, it was in such a steep and treacherous part of the “yard”.

He wanted to make a fort this day upstairs, and offered to take it down before dinner because it uses all of the dining room chairs. He didn’t want to make it downstairs in the music room because #2 was down there and, I quote, “She’s really annoying when you’re trying to build a fort.”

If you asked her, she would probably say the same thing about him.

Once he made the fort, he started working on me to let him sleep in it. He even offered to take it down so everyone could eat around the table and then rebuild it. I’m just so thrilled any time something non-electronic happens that doesn’t involve arguing or tears that I relented. It was pretty cool- it came out round inside.

outsidefort — This picture was taken the morning after, before 11am. Hence the TV.

My permission secured, he went to work on getting #4 to sleep in there with him. Because it’s a little scary and lonely to sleep in there by yourself.

When I got home from work, it was odd how dark and quiet the house was. The dogs were crated, #4 and #5 were asleep in the fort and the sitter was on the couch using her laptop. We said goodbye in whispers but the dogs woke up anyway.

The dogs were so totally discombobulated by the fort. They whined in the crate because there were nearby laps they weren’t in. I let them out to take them outside but they beelined for the fort instead. Except Jack couldn’t figure out how to get in it, so I helped him.

Then came a series of nails on the floor and much dog activity. In and out and all around the fort. I took them both outside briefly but afterwards neither one would calm down at the same time, all the while crawling in and out of the fort and on #4 and #5’s heads.

I went to forcibly remove them, but #4 protested sleepily and said that Casey was under the covers, which she was. Somehow Jack also ended up naked, which makes him harder to grab because he’s quite wiggly and there’s nothing to hold on to when he’s naked. Well, nothing good anyway.

At this point, #5 sat up halfway and said, “Why is it so hard to sleep?”

I told them if the dogs got too annoying to put them back in the crate and went back in our room to read.

More whines. More nails on the floor. I heard the crate door open and shut, twice. Then more whines. Lots and lots more whines. The crate door opened again, and then there was the unmistakable sound of Puggle Demolition Derby.

One of these days I’m going to record that. It defies description. My friend Jeremy, who is owned by two pugs, refers to it as “weaseling”.

#4 and I opened my bedroom door at the same time.

Me: Are they being annoying?

Her eyes were wide and she nodded vigorously: Yes!!!

So I let them in and squished their little heads together in an embrace, reminded them I was the big dog and told them to calm the hell down.

Them: wiggle wiggle

Me: I’M THE BIG DOG!!

Them: wiggle wag

Me: Big dog! That’s me.

Them: whine

Me: Shut it.

Them: lick

Me: awwww.

Everyone slept after that. #4, in fact, managed to sleep until ten a.m. which earned her this picture that she doesn’t know I took.

I noticed she also added a fan. Aunt Beth will be proud.

Did you ever build forts as a kid? Is anyone else doing screen bans this summer? I told my chiropractor about it and he thought it was brilliant; then he told his kids and now they’re pooling their money to take a hit out on me.

Jack Otis and Casey McCrea, Geniuses

If they had business cards, that’s what would be printed on them.

What? Yes, I know dogs don’t have business cards. In no small part because they have no thumbs. But I’m thinking about getting them little tags for their collars because they’re so, so smart.

What? No, I don’t believe for a second that we’re the only family who gave their dogs middle names.

Not only are my dogs smart, they are terribly aware. Observe:

lookingthewrongway — Looking the wrong way.

We’re puggles. We’re so smart. Hey, look! Grass!

missingthedeer — What was twenty feet from them in the other direction.

No, we don’t need to look the other way. What could possibly be in the other direction? We’re puggle geniuses.

deer — Completely at ease, with good reason.

Nothing gets by us! We’re geniuses! Did I mention we’re puggles?

Below is the deer’s reaction to me taking pictures. My dogs actually did not notice the deer until after they stood up.

Then Casey lunged, and the deer bolted. Mama went one way, babies went the other way.

I say babies, but they’re practically grown. They were babies last year and we would see them in this part of the cemetery while we were walking the dogs. The dogs didn’t see the deer then, either.

Now the babies are losing their fawnliness.

Yep, any day now these fawns will realize that they’re full grown. That they probably should get full-time jobs; maybe go to summer school.

blendin — You can't see me. I blend right in.

don'tlook — Don't look at me. Don't look at me. Don't look at me.

They’ll realize how awesome it would be if they started cleaning the kitchen without being asked and stopped leaving their shoes in a death trap pile at the bottom of the stairs so their stepmama deer doesn’t break her damn neck.

They’ll buy their stepmama deer Godiva.

The extra dark truffle bar.

Hmmm. Where was I?

Oh right.

Geniuses.

I think we made it

In the [truly] immortal words of the lead character in my show, it is finished.

We open tonight.

Finally.

At some point during the party that follows the show, reviews will start to post online. People with iPhones (which is everyone except me) will read them and word will spread. What did they say? Did they like it? Do we have to look for work next month, or can I buy a new laptop?

And after tonight, irrespective of critics and ticket sales, I start to get my life back.

Right now it looks like this:

That’s our room. All my mess.

Underneath that pile is my writing desk.

My life also looks like this:

*sigh*. Well, at least I know they ate.

I took the kids to school for the first time in months this morning. I overslept. I was cranky and snappy. There wasn’t enough food for lunches for everyone (not that I had time to make them all anyway). But damn, it was good to see them. I tripped over their shoes and ignored the clothes on the living room floor and gave them money, and sat with the pull of truth inside of what a terrible job I’ve done on the parenting side of things during this production period.

I’m glad we’re at the end of this.

Lots of people have jumped in to help us get through the past couple months, including my mom, my sister, and some of the best babysitters in the world. CC is amazing, the way he’s kept everything running while going into production on his own show. The kids have also stepped up and taken on more responsibility. All while I get to work with some of my favorite people, doing a pretty kick-ass thing. I’m a very, very lucky woman.

Hey, when did we get a rat?

To all the incredibly talented people – and I do not say that lightly – that I am fortunate enough to work with, I say: Thank you. Break legs. And, hopefully unnecessarily preemptively, Ben Brantley is a twat.

Merde!