Mondays I pick the girls up from school, bring them back to work with me for the afternoon, then pick up Shawn from high school and take everybody back to my house, where we make dinner.  Myndi comes to join us when she gets off work, and sometimes Paul joins us too.  Then Myndi takes the kids home with her and I collapse on the couch and watch the ceiling whirl around.

I’m starting to get the hang of it, though.  At first I tried really hard to make dinners that were 1) healthy   2) things I like and 3) things all three teenagers will eat.  But again and again I’d buy things at the grocery store that I thought were exactly what they would like, only to find out we don’t like bread with “things” in it, only certain brands of Ranch dressing are acceptable, and orange chicken from Panda Express is everyone’s favorite but somehow cooking chicken at home and buying a bottle of Panda Express Orange Sauce is “too weird.”

It’s so much easier just to make them cook.

Happily, they like taking charge of the kitchen.  The first time we tried this, it was an elaborate plan:  Taco Night!  The girls went to the grocery store with me and picked out ingredients.  I assisted by chopping things up and putting everything in bowls, and then I left the kitchen entirely to them.  At dinner time, we found an elegant table set with a vase of flowers, place cards assigning seats, and menus written in curly script so that we could specify exactly what we wanted in our tacos.  I heard several alarming crashes in the kitchen and an awful lot of giggling.  When they appeared with our (healthy and delicious) tacos, they were both wearing cocktail dresses they’d raided from my closet.

Usually, it’s less formal.  Last night we had sandwiches for dinner.  Everybody made their own:  3 adults and 3 teenagers navigating around each other in my poorly-designed little kitchen.  Shawn was singing Christmas carols.  Myndi was recounting her day.  Paul was managing the bacon.  Emily was coming and going so she could visit her family.  Angie was finishing her math.  The cats were hiding under the bed.  I was trying to keep out of the way.  Some vegetables were involved somewhere.

Shawn analyzed all of us based on whatever it was his high school psych class learned that day.  Emily gave me an extra hug on the way out the door.  Angie tried to persuade me that she could watch tv and do math at the same time, which is probably true (I used to do it), but I said no.  After dinner Shawn disappeared to talk to his girlfriend on the phone, Paul watched tv with Angie for a while, and Myndi and I looked at vacation plans over Christmas.

Emily collected the sweater she left at my house last time, and forgot a different one.  Angie cried because the end of the show was romantically tragic.  Shawn came back for more sandwiches while Myndi tried to get everybody into the car.  Somehow a soccer ball was left behind.  I’m not sure where it came from, but I’m sure I didn’t have one before…  I ran outside to try to give it to them before they left, but the car taillights were already disappearing around the corner.  I took the soccer ball back inside, collapsed on the couch, and started missing them already.