Today, I was able to enjoy the gift of a day at home alone to work on exhibition labels for a Japanese ceramics exhibition I am co-curating. This day was made possible because my son Theo went to the camp at his school for the day with his friend Harry. I woke up excited at the thought of all the work I could do in this day alone.

But, Theo woke up this morning with a different plan. He had changed his mind about going to camp and pleaded to stay at home. I told him over and over that he couldn’t because I had work to do, but he stubbornly refused. It wasn’t until I recruited Harry to come by and convince of the fun they would have together, that he got himself dressed and out the door. His friend’s words of encouragement worked many times better than my insistence that he had no choice but to go, followed by my threats of terrifying consequences if he continued to refuse. Lesson learned.

In celebration of winning this little battle, I took a board game to the camp organizers as a donation. We have a couple of piles of board games and puzzles stashed inside our coffee table that we don’t use much and a summer camp seems like a good place for such games, as these games are usually more fun with more than one child playing. To acknowledge the sweetness of having time to myself today, the board game I chose to give the camp was Candy Land. And because I worked hard at my computer today and don’t want to go to bed with tight shoulders, I’m choosing to keep today’s blog post short and sweet too!