THE LONGEST SUNDAY

I was awake somewhere around 05,30h and noticed my 'good morning' text from my boyfriend to which I promptly replied. It was his day off but he needed to go to work to cover for someone who was sick. Thankfully I did not oversleep this morning's Skype session as I have a day or two this past week due to the effects of allergies.

On weekends I would return to sleep after our chat, but during the week when the children are here I would get up and prepare both breakfast and lunch before waking the children. Today I did not go back to sleep. Not that I wanted to jump out of bed and start my day. Chores were on my mind and it started with turning on the washing machine to wash a sweater on the delicate cycle and progressed from there.

There were a few dishes left from last night which needed to be washed. Then it was thinking what to make for breakfast and going about gathering the ingredients. The oven was already on by the time Sage and Cinnamon showed up downstairs. Sage wanted to know if he could build on the Lego set he started yesterday. Cinnamon tried guessing what the Sunday surprise breakfast was. I told her she will see soon enough. Her guess was either smoothies or a puffy pancake. This time it was the puffy pancake.

We sat down to breakfast by 09,30h which is early for a Sunday morning. I made Turkish coffee and the children had milk. As Cinnamon left the table, she commented on how 'stuffed' she felt after eating the pancake and two glasses of milk. I was glad she had enough to eat. Neither of the children mentioned being hungry all day but I made sure to have an early dinner.

There was no shortage of activities to occupy Cinnamon and Sage all day. It started with them taking turns building the Lego boathouse. At one point, I had to take apart a few pages' worth of building in order to determine a piece which was placed incorrectly but the puzzling part was an incorrectly drawn instruction - something I determined after the destruction and reconstruction. A piece was shown to be flush to another piece when there was no way it could have been with the pieces given.

Later the children spoke with their sister via Skype. Then they played with their pretend iPhones and went upstairs to play with Sage's foosball table. They carried their stuffed animals downstairs and positioned them on the two chairs and the daybed. Cinnamon read a couple books, and then took up colouring some pages with her brother. The pages were the Christmas-themed ones they got at the grocery store the one day they lost their way and had to be paged by the store intercom.

Sage returned to the Lego table before dinner and then helped me put a few pieces of the puzzle together. He was fascinated with the boathouse and how the lever pushed the boat out into the water.

Dinner was spaghetti with feta for the children. Neither of the two wanted the meatless loaf or the vegetables. I added spicy Urfa chilies to my spaghetti as did Sage. Instead of feta, I grated some Parmesan cheese.

With waking up early and all of the activities of the day, it seemed like the longest Sunday ever. The only thing I wished was to have been able to talk with my boyfriend a bit longer, but I am grateful for the few moments we had.