Please imagine a throbbing beat and twirling disco ball when I say: "The boys are back."

Mack Daddy's boys that is, my three sons, ages 12, 9, and 7.

My mother took them to rural Virginia, to visit my sister, and for six glorious days Ms. Daddy and I were child-free and did whatever the heck child-free people do, e.g. brunch and whatnot. Long strolls. Dinners out.

But now our boys are back, like a horde of marauding huns (pictured above), and...

1) The house is a mess, clothes and toys strewn everywhere.

2) A ragtag horde of kids flows through the house, and out back into the alley, dressed up in a variety of outfits, pretending to be soldiers, spacemen, whatever, bashing at each other with swords, light-sabres, and hockey sticks.

Yesterday with some neighbourhood kids, my kids, one wearing a professional-looking boxer's helmet, another goalie pads, another a "nerf tag" vast, were playing a game that might well have been called "Run around and hit each other with stuff." While the parents attempted to socialize and sip chardonnay.

When it all (inevitably) ended in tears, a makeshift hockey area was set up in the alley, and the energy and aggression was channeled into-- well, if not exactly a productive, then certainly a non-lethal outlet.

3) I'm exhausted.

4) Ms. Daddy and I hit the ground running every morning, and every morning is peppered with some sort of emergency and/or emotion.

This morning, at 8:15, our 12 year old: "I forgot! I had a track and field thing this morning! I'm f***ing screwed!"

Mack: "Hey! Watch language!"

Ms. Daddy: "What time does it start?"

"Like right now!" Tears. Ms. Daddy, still practically in her PJs, had to drive him to some godforsaken school. Mack took over other duties, e.g lunch prep and dog walk.

5) The TV's incessant, eternal, immortal quacking seems to follow me and bedevil me wherever I go.

6) The flow of petty demands is neverending, like a series of little ping-pong balls bouncing off Mack Daddy's cranium.

7) I feel guilty, anxious, and under pressure 24-7.

Everything's back to normal, in other words.

It's nice.