What I Did on My Vacation

The long school vacation has ended and strangely, I have mixed feelings about the return of Monday mornings.

At the beginning of a full week's vacation from school, the children count up all the free days ahead, lost in dreamy contemplation of nine consecutive days of sleeping in. At the beginning of a full week's vacation from school, I try to think of interesting and fun things we can do to break up the monotony, and to make the week memorable. OF course, I intend to include educational experiences that will open their minds to new academic frontiers.

Needless to say, we don't often actually do any of those things. When it comes right down to it, inactivity is what they are looking forward to. Truthfully, it's what I am looking forward to as well. Slothful is an ugly word, but let's be honest.

School vacation means nine consecutive mornings where I don't have to set three separate alarms set to make sure I get the kids up on time. Nine mornings where I don't have to trick a groggy Boy into the bathroom and then shove him under a shower while he proclaims that he's clean enough already. Nine mornings without the Girl's questionable taste in music being loudly shared from the bathroom as she straightens her hair. Nine mornings where I don't have to worry about tardiness, imagined illnesses that would prevent their going to school or explaining to The Boy that it IS important that his socks match. No hurried search for the shoes that mysteriously walked away during the night and hid themselves under the couch. No shouting "it's February" to The Girl as she attempts to leave the house without the unfashionably warm winter jacket.

Of course, it goes without saying that it's also nine consecutive days of siblings bickering, televisions blaring, loud music, loud voices, increased clutter and a heavy cash outlay for snacks and pizza.

But come Monday morning, when that first alarm sounds its warning bell, the trade-off seems so worth it.

Those Lazy Summer Days

Every summer, school vacation presents problems for parents: how to keep the kids busy and entertained for two months. When I was a kid, this was never a problem. As soon as we woke up in the morning, we were outside, knocking on the doors of friends' houses, running under summer skies throughout the days. I can't remember anyone planning a single activity for us, our imaginations filled the days that seem to last forever and yet were so brief.

Bur for kids today, it's very different. Summers must be planned, activities found, rides sorted out and of course, money plunked down to pay for it all. Being able to stay home and experience summer freedom isn't what it used to be. Since most kids aren't home in the summer, there's little to do in an empty neighborhood.

This year I discovered what seemed to be a perfect solution - the Parks Program. All of the town's parks are staffed with counselors who will guide your young ones through a summer of fun and activities and it's all free. This sounded ideal as the neighborhood park is a mere two or three streets away and the ages served are 6-14, a range inclusive of both the children. Moreover, the elder can keep an eye on the younger.

During their April vacation I was persuaded to allow The Girl and her friend take the The Boy to the park. They had a raucous good time - playing, swinging, sunning and buying junk food from the ice cream truck. They went every day and vowed to spend all Saturdays in this manner. Although they never actually went to the park again, I still thought itsounded like the perfect plan.

As with any perfect plan, it went wrong before it began. The elder, being a 14 year old girl, had no interest whatsoever in going to the park, let alone watching a younger brother. She was bribed into participation with promises of payment, but soon even the prospect of spending money was not enough to rouse her from her bed to walk the three blocks.

Soon, the younger realized that the counselors don't insist on participation in games and that they have an "open door" policy, which meant he could leave at any time. The first time he decided to exercise this right was a day when clouds lowered heavily and there was an imminent threat of rain and thunder. Having kept a close eye on the weather, I set out to pick him up only to find him already making his way home, having left upon feeling the first tiny droplet of rain.

Soon his reasons to leave were such things as boredom, he forgot his favorite Pokemon card, he hit his thumb on a tree, etc. He began to find reasons not to go before he even got there and turned back halfway.

But never fear, The Boy has found the perfect activity to keep him busy all summer. At the top of the street (the hill, as he calls it), he has found a depression in the ground under a tree. He likes to sit in "the hole" and... well, I don't know what else he does. But when I call to him and ask what he's doing, he simply yells back "I am up the hill". Further inquiry reveals that he is "sitting in the hole".

Sure he will spend time riding his scooter, catching bugs, and just running for the sake of running, but it's nice to know that he will spend some time as I remember spending time on those long summer days. Sitting in quiet contemplation from a shady spot, perfectly situated to observe the world and its wonders - a walking stick on the tree bark, a dragon in the clouds flying through the sky - the wonders that we once saw on a summer afternoon. They are still there, though we no longer see them through the busy-ness of life. But sometimes, through the eyes of a child, we experience them once again.

A Weekend Reprieve

When you have children, there is a certain noise level to which you become accustomed. Even when they aren't fighting or trying to wrest the remote control for the TV from one another, there is never anything akin to quiet. Children make noise, even when they are behaving well.

And yet, give a mother just 48 hours of peace and quiet and she quickly adjusts.

This weekend the children were away at their cousin's house. A pair just made for my pair - a slightly older boy to play video games, discuss Pokemon card collections and pass on outgrown clothes for my son to hang with and a slightly younger girl for my daughter to adopt as her little sister/doll/plaything.

It was the first quiet time my husband and I have had since our brief honeymoon. We were married in May and since then our time has been spent working and blogging and listening to the sounds of children who unfortunately don't go back to school until September.

The children arrived home this evening in typical fashion, each trying to out-talk the other, first through rapidity of speech and then through volume. It didn't take long for them to tire of us though and within minutes they had recruited the neighbor children to take part in their mission to re-acclimate us to noise.

What I found interesting is my initial reaction to what was basically very minor noisemaking for four children. It was like a volcanic eruption of words and sounds, screeches and squeals. But two hours into their homecoming and I realized that I am already learning to block out the titters and teasing and listening only for sounds of dangerous mayhem.

I often wondered how my mother dealt with the noise and confusion of five children, I can barely handle two. I do now know why my mother gave up on fastidiousness in housework, however.

Upon arriving, my daughter remarked "Oh, the house looks so clean".

Yeah, that lasted about as long as the quiet.