Lost weekend

Noel has gone to Chicago for a weekend of hard work, and I'm here with the kids for a weekend of hard fun.  (To coin a phrase.)  He'll be filming segments for a video version of the popular A.V. Club feature Inventory ... all day Saturday, all day Sunday.  I'll be making the usual weekend rounds -- library, playgrounds, church -- trying to keep the kids fed and entertained.

The only wild card in our weekend routine is a surprise birthday party for one of Cady Gray's classmates.  But this is an unusual situation.  Carson has cancer and has to be taught at home.  He has visited Cady Gray's classroom exactly once, making a huge impression on her.  She explained to us how he had to wear a mask so he didn't catch any germs and get sick, and I explained to her how the medicine he was taking probably made his immune system not work right, so he can't fight off normal germs like she can.

The Make-A-Wish Foundation is putting on this surprise birthday party for him.  And I must admit to being curious about how these kinds of things go.  All we have to do is show up on time and party.  It's at the college across town, in a large banquet room.  Cady Gray hasn't stopped talking about it.  She's pumped --about the party, about the surprise, and about Carson, this unusual (non-)presence in her class.  I'm interested in being a part of a Make-A-Wish event, which most of us hear about in national news stories but don't participate in firsthand.

It's only three full days, really, to make sure the kids stay safe, nourished, and engaged.  Yet as with all weekends, the possibilities seem, on Friday night, practically endless.