No more Marley and Me

It's the end of week one without Mike, who's in China on a business trip. He'll be gone next week too. He's been several times, but most of those were when the girls were much smaller. This time they're much more aware of his absence and it's obvious they're a little freaked out by it. The kids are acting out more often and I've noticed them yelling at each other quite a bit today. I can tell my patience is wearing thin, too, because I then yell at them for yelling at each other. It's (not) very effective.

They made it through the week okay. Today must have really hit home ... no school or gymnastics to distract them. We passed the morning by picking up our horrifically messy living room and kitchen, then had lunch, napped, and decided to go rent movies to take our minds off missing Daddy.

Seemed like such a good idea at the time. Hannah picked a Scooby-doo compilation, Ryley chose the sequel to Narnia, and Abby chose Marley and Me. I'm guessing it's the giant picture of a Labrador puppy on the front that grabbed her interest. I vaguely recalled seeing the book but didn't read it, and after a quick reading of the back of the movie cover decided it was pretty harmless. Some of Hannah's friends had seen it already and told her it was sad, but we're not particularly emotional people about movies so I figured we'd be okay. We even KNEW the dog was going to die at the end.

Oh, if only I had known... an hour and a half later, as all four of us sat bawling our eyes out... Ryley declares "That is the worst movie EVER!!!" In the midst of my tears, I looked at our pitiful bunch and started to giggle. Somewhere in all of our misery I figured most women don't consider crying at movies to be odd and, in fact, probably rent movies like Marley on purpose.

As for us, we WON'T be watching that movie again. Certainly NOT after a whole week of no Daddy. Thankfully Mike called us shortly after the movie had ended (while we were drowning our sorrows in some Pop-Ice popscicles) and the girls cheered up a little. Some after-dark bike-riding in the driveway helped too. Marley has been replaced in its cover and safely stowed until its return to the video store.

Maybe I should go ahead and ban Where the Red Fern Grows just for the heck of it. I'm still traumatized after our fourth-grade viewing of it back in '89.