.....and of course, a day off from school for my oldest three. Yippee!
I decided to approach today like I do any other school holiday and cram as much "fun" into an eight hour period as possible and hope for the best. Since the girls have been learning about MLK in school and have taken a recent interest in activism, I had planned an exciting day filled with civil rights related activities at an art museum, assembling donation bags for homeless women, making cards for friends, and finally visiting their dad at work for lunch before swim team. Afterward, I would return home to cook a tasty yet nutritious dinner for us to enjoy.
Guess how many of those things happened today???
ZERO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I would like to think that attempting to teach children the value of being charitable is worth a small fraction of actually following through with it, but I know darn well what my old Catholic school nuns would say about the "road to hell" in this situation. Good intentions aside, I think the kids are more likely to remember this as the day Mom lost her shit and yelled for 45 minutes about a misplaced girl scout cookie order form (it was at the bottom of the recycling bin) and a certain 4 year old's refusal to wear pants than any lesson about the importance of Dr. King's message and the value of helping those less fortunate.
Parenting is really hard. Some days you nail it, and you feel like a million bucks because your kids are growing up to be these awesome, funny, smart, interesting little people. Other days you fail miserably and your little boy acts more like Ryan Lochte in Rio than the charming little fellow his preschool teachers say he is, and your baby reminds you of a tantruming (albeit less orange) Donald Trump. Today I give myself a solid D+. The only thing that happened according to plan was that Lily sold a shitload of girl scout cookies to some kind coworkers and neighbors. Because damnit, I found the form!!
Why can't I handle school vacation days? Five years into having school age kids, I still head into them with a pit in my stomach and in full-on mom battle mode. Playdates to line up! Activities to schedule! Check that public skating calendar! In reality, it's a small miracle if I can motivate them to get out of their pajamas by 11 am without tears. All of my planning backfires in my face because a) if one kid gets a playdate, the other 2 cry and whine all day if they don't have one too, b) there is never enough time in one day for skating, swimming, movies, Ikea, neon rope climbing etc, and c) THERE IS NO SINGLE ACTIVITY THAT MORE THAN 1/4 OF THEM ENJOY!!!! So no matter what grandiose "fun" thing I plan, there will undoubtedly be 2-3 kids whining throughout, causing me to have to search for that bottle of jack daniels in the basement by 10 am.
So I give up. Yes, I still plan to make the blessing bags and the cards for friends, and teach my kids about the importance of activism and Dr. King's dream, but maybe not in all in one day. In fact, I think sometime within the next six months is a more appropriate goal. Next vacation day, I am going to let them stay in PJs on the couch for half the day watching you tube videos of creepy grown men unwrapping ninja turtle toys (WHY DO THEY LIKE THIS?!?) instead of dragging them out of the house for some kind of educational experience they don't want. Why? Because when I am stressed out, no one actually ends up having fun, and any teachable moments will be lost if all they remember is rushing around while I yell at them to find their socks.
So hopefully I will figure out how to approach the school vacation day in a healthier way sometime between now and February break, when they have (GASP) two whole days off in a row. Send prayers. In the meantime, I will hopefully be working on what I should have been doing today, which is my grad school application. I've run out of non-degree credits, so it looks like it's finally time to take that leap...
...or maybe just wait another year instead. I only have, you know, one more week to decide, write an essay and ask for letters of recommendation. Whatevz. NBD, as my classmates say.
But just when I get too stressed out thinking about that, I remember..TOMORROW'S A SCHOOL DAY!!! Cowabunga, as the ninja turtles would say!
