My son turned eight at the end of February, so as you would expect, we are allowing him to celebrate his birthday this weekend by having a friend sleep over. First we went to Ci Ci’s all you can eat pizza which is like the Wal-Mart of pizza shops which is to say pretty awesome. Of all the places in Cranberry where you can get Macaroni and Cheese on pizza, and enough of it that you literally feel like your abdomen has been run through by a bayonet, it is my fourth favorite and under 10 bucks for 3 of us! So after a quick stop at the candy machine and the dessert bar, we stopped for gelati and headed home.

But it is not all good news. Friday nights are when we put on a movie for the kids up in their rooms right after dinner and I sit on the couch in my underwear and watch sports or catch up on the week’s tv-14 programming. I will feel really weird if I have to scream at someone else’s kid to go to bed and leave me alone. I also suspect my wife is planning to do crafts with the kids and I have a sinking feeling that someone will soon suggest we play a board game and my stomach is feeling the full weight of nine slices of macaroni and cheese pizza.

And of course the kids will stay up late, and there is zero chance Heather will want to fool around if there is someone else’s kid eating popcorn and watching Diary of a Wimpy kid two rooms over.

Tomorrow, before sending him home, I will be making waffles for breakfast with my secret special ingredient (vanilla.)