It’s Spring Break, aka March Madness for Parents. Which has nothing to do with basketball and everything to do with how we play the parenting game.
So far, one of my kids fell in a river, and I lost another one in the forest.
Don’t worry, though. All’s well.
Sometimes, even ninjas lose their balance.
But I dried that river kid off, and he wore my coat kilt-style in such a way as to honor our Scottish forebearers,
with fierce pride, a whole lotta freedom and a few high leg kicks.
And the child who was lost only felt lost to me and was never lost to himself. Which is often the way of it when we assign lostness. He knew where he was all along. He met me at the trail’s end with three of his buddies, perfectly happy to have found his own way and a little bewildered at my running and panicking and too-tight group-hugging and don’t-ever-stray-while-I’m-clothing-your-naked-brother againing.
Given my previous Spring Break successes, I wanted to think I had a pretty high seed headed into my March Madness for Parents bracket. Unfortunately, the river and the forest caused a surprise upset. What can I say? I played hard. The other team played harder.
In other words, it’s Spring Break. The kids are home.
And the real March Madness has begun.
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Are you on Spring Break, too? If yes, how’s your March Madness (for Parents) bracket holding up? You still in the game? Or did you already go down in a blaze of glory, like me? 😀
(And psst… if you want that Spring Break March Madness graphic, you can swipe it from the Five Kids Facebook page. Enjoy!)
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24 responses to “It’s Spring Break, aka March Madness (for Parents)”
We have one teen attending school in Oregon and one teen attending school in Washington, so we get to deal with TWO back-to-back Spring Breaks! And our fifth anniversary falls right in between! The Oregon teen, Noah, gets to do pre-make-up homework all this week so that he and the Washington teen, Titus, can go gallivanting off with their grandparents to the beach next week. (I told him to think of it as “work from home” instead of going in to the “office”.) They’ll be gone Monday – Thursday. Mmmm.
My sister is kindly taking our two little ones from Sunday night – Wednesday afternoon, so we’ll have three nights and two days to ourselves. That’s the longest we’ll have ever gotten away together. (Our “honeymoon” was one night and one day.)
This is my first Spring Break in forever that I am neither a student or teacher. You know what? IT. SUCKS.
I’m wondering if my teacher-style spring break, aka, we all need a break, so do whatever the crap you want, just don’t bother me, is actually better. Something to consider, yes?
I love all these comments…. as “Spring break” around here is all the time, with my 4 year old & 19 month old and being 34 weeks pregnant….I just count the minutes to naptime. I am so tempted to ask the girl’s next door to come “play” with my kiddos while they are on “Spring break” the next 2 weeks. This Momma could use the “Me” time….
DO IT!!!
Spring break is next week in these parts. I am lamenting the fact that I will not be home to be with my guy. But Dad will take a couple of days off, and that means that my house will be double the disaster. But they will make memories…………..
We lost our 7 yr old in the park this morning. We had a really late night last night and he fell asleep at the top of the jungle gym (one of those 4 story high huge structures). It took us a good 40 minutes to find him because of course, he was not answering our calls… 🙂
It takes the wind right out of one’s sails
Whew! Terrifying, Mandi. I”m glad you found him, safe and sound. The one time we want them NOT to sleep, right??
Not being able to find your kid is a freaky, freaky thing.
We’ll be breaking next week…and I hope I don’t mean that too literally! (We spent much of last summer break with one in a cast…so hopefully none of our breaks this year “match” that!)
As far as my spot in the brackets…I’m not holding out much hope. I mean…I’m going to go in strong and with good intentions…but I’m fairly confident I’ll be ready for ALL of us to go back to school when break’s over!
I’m rooting for you, Elizabeth! Here’s hoping Spring Break doesn’t turn into Spring Broke Us.
The good is that the warm-ish weather means my kids can play in the cul-de-sac. The bad news is that the little girl down the street torments them each time they step outside. It’s a love/hate relationship with my boys and this girl, making me really excited for high school. But for now, I’m still in the game: long naps on the couch each afternoon give me energy for the long run. (I would have totally freaked in your situation, Beth. Your madness seems justified.)
Thank you for the camaraderie, Melanie!
My two kids are 3ish and 14 months. I wish I could go on spring break! And by “spring break,” I mean sleeping uninterrupted for a week. :). Have fun with your kiddos this week!
Whoa… if you could actually figure out a way to market that “sleep for a week” concept to exhausted parents, you’d make millions.
We will be spending spring break driving from WA to Disneyland with our 4 kids ranging in age from 14 to 2… I will most definitely need a break to recover from our break… preferably someplace quiet… very, very quiet 🙂
Right?? I always giggle at the concept of “vacation.” But we ARE building memories! 😉
I have a three year old, so it’s always spring break around here!! Today kicked off with an overnight snowfall of 7+”, so we were stuck in the house. Again. So I let him play in the sink and watch “Lord of the Beans” five times. Five. Times. I am not sure it will ever be spring in Indiana 🙂
Five times. Hehehe. I love that you shared this, Rachel. You rock.
That river and forest excitement of yesterday was WAAAAY better than staying home and yelling at them while they bicker over screen time though right? Adventure!
Ha! “Adventure” was always my parents’ code-word for “This is going to SUCK, kids.”
I might have a few choice adjectives to describe the word adventure. OK. One adjective. But it’s a good one.
Your sentiment, though, is right on. What my parents called an adventure, I call “building memories.” Some day my kids will walk around muttering “effing ‘building memories.’” It’s practically family tradition. 😉
My kids don’t have spring break until next week but they do have Friday off. So I will be taking them to Nana’s. It’s always good to have backup!
Good plan.
I haven’t lost any kids in the forest yet, because the boys (6 year old twins) both have MONO. Actually, one has both mono and pneumonia. We are spending Spring Break IN the house…..together. 🙂
“I thought kids with mono were supposed to be lethargic!” I said with surprise to the doctor. “Naa, some kids don’t get that part of the virus. Especially the younger ones.”
Oh, man. Sending love, Jaclyn. If I could send energy and rest via the interwebs, I’d send that, too. Stupid technology hasn’t figured that one out yet!