Today while I was folding one of the 15 trillion loads of laundry I do every week, I reflected on the very pleasant weekend we just had. My mother-in-law was with us for a visit, and we watched movies and talked and generally carried on with ice cream and scotch and wine, each to her own. She’s my surrogate mom while my own mom is so very far away in California, and I’m grateful to have her only an hour away.

On Sunday, we watched the Super Bowl—and found ourselves invaded. It’s been a tradition this football season to make queso dip for consumption during football games, and it’s also become a tradition for our son’s friends to come over on Sunday and scarf it down. (My husband and I are lucky to get 10 chips between us—but that’s OK. We don’t really need them anyway.) This Sunday was no different. We made the queso, and added a slow cooker full of Little Smokies in BBQ sauce, and suddenly we had a party. At one point, we had five teenage boys in the kitchen, and two of them brought snacks! Somehow, our son had managed to arrange his very own Super Bowl party. Larry’s mom leaned over to me and said, “You’ll really miss this when he’s gone.” I looked back at her, a little wild-eyed, and realized that I will. Despite the chaos and noise and incredible amount of food consumption (and the Sprite can in the palm tree), I will miss those boys. They’re good kids, they have a lot of fun together, and they are growing up fast. Soon they’ll be off to college and jobs and life.

Sunday afternoons will be awfully quiet.