By Thursday night I’m toast.

Burnt toast.

My inbox is overflowing, deadlines are looming, and I’ve spent countless hours in the car.

Countless mostly because my brain is fried and I simply can’t do the math.

I’m ready for sweatpants, solitude, and silence.

But all that adulting tired, that’s not my kids’ problem.

They didn’t email me once. Or make a project more complicated. Or cause a traffic jam.

As preschoolers they aren’t even asking me to do complicated math.

Fortunately their Thursday night expectations are low, not because of my work schedule necessarily, but because it’s a Thursday.

Thursdays are school days. Regular days. Non dessert days. My kids expect leftovers, baths, and bedtime.

They aren’t going to give me solitude or silence, but they’ll be game for the sweatpants.

However just this once, instead of going straight to get home and dive into those sweatpants, I took a right and told the kids I had a surprise.

Their guesses as to what this surprise might be made me realize just how lame I normally am on a Thursday.

“Is there a package from Amazon?” “Do you have raisins in your bag?” “Are we going the back way home?”

Two wide eyed kids grinned ear to ear as we pulled into the shopping center parking lot, happily realizing we were going to be trading leftovers for their favorite quick service quesadillas.

Then, because we had saved time by not doing dishes and because my weekday no dessert rule is terrible, we quite literally skipped next door to spend some time giggling over frozen yogurt.

I’m still tired. Realistically I’ll probably be asleep in about fifteen minutes. Sixteen minutes if I decide to put on my “I’m getting old” face cream.

But I’m glad I remembered tonight that the adult Thursday tireds are not a child’s problem.

And that frozen yogurt still exists on Thursdays.

And that it doesn’t take much to make a memory.

All it really takes is a different way home, some dairy products, and a tiny burst of energy.

I think I can muster that for the ones who deserve it the most.