4pm

We’ve been pretty lenient with screentime during this whole mess. When you are stuck inside for two months without any real human contact, you have to turn a blind eye to a few extra games of Fortnite here and there.

Like how every morning Diana quietly recycles that wine bottle I shouldn’t have opened the night before. 

And like those extra portions of wine, there comes a time when Luca just has to dry out. Because he pissed me off royally.

Last weekend, we visited the cabin so we could be surrounded by nature, family, and roughly 4,000 chipmunks. As you recall, our cabin has terrible wifi, which makes me very happy. It makes Luca miserable. 

While the rest of America was honoring our fallen heroes by refusing to social distance, Luca spent Memorial Day weekend complaining nonstop. My urge to yell was at barely a simmer for the drive up and occasionally got to a rolling boil when he hid in our room in the dark for hours, siphoning the tiny wifi signal for his ipad. I managed to maintain my temper by laying in my hammock and drinking Michigan beers.

When we got home, Luca immediately raced to his xbox and spent the next 4 hours mainlining digital violence. We let it go because we found a fun new TV show to binge. 

Around 9, I called downstairs for Luca to get off the game. No response. I called again. No response. I finally gave him my angry dad voice and Luca came stomping up the stairs. I don’t even remember what flippant thing he said, but my urge to yell not only boiled over, but got knocked off the stove and spilled all over the floor. 

At some point during my tirade, I bellowed that there would be no screens until 4pm from this moment forward.  As I caught my breath, I heard Eli’s voice from upstairs, “Does that include me?”

Urge to yell…boiling.

Today, both boys steered clear of screens. They read. They drew. Eli put together a desk that I refused to construct. 

Luca and I spent some time together in the late afternoon. We both knew we had a little repairing to do to our relationship. So we played with Jerry and had a hilarious bike ride in a downpour. 

Luca said, “This is the most fun and the most wet I’ve ever been!”

I resisted the urge to say, “See? You don’t need screens!”

He asked me to play Jenga and we sat and laughed and spilled little blocks all over the dining room. I noticed that his eyes flicked to the clock at 3:59 and I said, “I think we can let you off early.” 

Luca raced to his xbox with a wide grin and I resisted the urge to open a bottle of wine.