Who ever came up with the term “Spring Break” clearly wasn’t a mother. We are 1 week and 2 days into our Spring Break, and it’s anything but a break. In the past 10 days we’ve gone to the movies 3 times (nothing I particularly wanted to see), made 3 dozen cupcakes (of which I ate too many), played endless rounds of championship “Go Fish”, gone for 6 bike rides (up hill both ways), broken up a dozen sibling knock-down fights (got clipped in the jaw in the process), cleaned up after countless art projects, chased after a lost dog (when the door was left open), reset an Ipad (after a password was “accidentally” put on it), gone to the zoo, went swimming in freezing water (because the heater wasn’t quite ready to wake up from hibernation), made 33 lunches, 72 snacks, and dragged my youngest to Best Buy to use his money to replace his sister’s headphones, because he cut the chord on her’s when he was mad. And it ain’t over yet!
Meanwhile, as I run around with three kids at home, the work in my office and on my desk just piles up. You know what that means! That means that when the kids finally get back to school, I don’t get to relax. I’ll have TWICE as much work to get caught up on. I certainly can’t do work while they’re home. There is something about sitting at my desk and getting on my computer that triggers a fight between my kids. I can almost time it….Butt hits seat, fingers hit keyboard, 3, 2, 1…”MOM! Aidan kicked me!” Happens every time.
And then there’s my 14 year old. He’s bored out of his mind. I took him over to his buddy’s house yesterday. When his friend opened the front door it looked as if he had just crawled out of bed (at 10:45 am) with his hair sticking up all over. ”How’s your Spring Break going?” I asked. ”Tiring!” was his reply. Because lying around with nothing to do is very exhausting, apparently. My son clued me in. ”Mom, Spring Break is boring. We’re all posting on FB that we can’t wait to get back to school. School is where we socialize. Who’s idea was it to have a Spring Break?” My thoughts, exactly!
So if teenagers don’t like it, and moms don’t like it, who likes Spring Break? The teachers! That’s who. After months of dealing with roomfuls of screaming kids, teachers get some well deserved time off. For them, Spring Break is a noun. For us moms, it’s a verb. So they can call it Spring Break, but from now on I’m calling it “Spring Brake Your Back as a Reminder to Start Planning for Summer”.
Gotta go. Time to break up another brother/sister UFC match upstairs. Wonder who’s in a headlock this round.
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