She smiled as the sounds of girlish giggles and laughter filtered through the house. Her daughters were having friends over for a sleepover and were thoroughly enjoying themselves. She was glad everything was going so beautifully. First, they’d had a princess tea party, complete with costumes, china cups and petit fours. Then they’d watched a movie playing off a bedsheet in the backyard, and shrieked in mock terror at the tires in the yard set to look like alligators (last month’s project). Now they were leaning out of the teepees she had arranged in their bedroom, gazing at the stars on the ceiling and discussing which boy they thought was cutest.
Yes, it had been a full and busy day, but much had been accomplished. The finishing touches had been added to the stairs, so that they now looked like book spines rather than just plain stairs. Her son’s room still needed some work done on it, but she had added the bookshelf decorated like a green pipe from the Mario-verse. Tomorrow she would start painting the tunnels through the Bowser’s Castle play area.
The last rays of the setting sun winked off the marbles she had set in the garden fence, and she smiled a good-night at the golf ball ladybugs she had placed to add some charm—
“It’s late. Let’s go to bed.” Her husband’s voice cut through her bliss, and with a sigh she headed toward the bedroom. As she trudged down the barren hallway in their apartment, she reflected on how quickly the evening had gone by. But she’d get through tomorrow’s chores of housework like she always did, and soon the evening would come and her child would go to sleep. Then she could again relax as she scoured Pinterest for tips and tricks, ideas and projects. And then off to bed again, to dream of all that she would never do.