“Oh school routine, oh school routine, my sanity enhances,” I have never been so freaking excited to fill a backpack in my entire life. I love extra time with my growing son, but I have carefully and painstakingly planned his triumphant return to the classroom. It’s a special day when you’re a mom, rivaled only by the beginning of the school year and that blissful day after Spring Break. There will be a giant skinny vanilla latte and blissful silence. I mean, education is just so important and there are many things he needs to learn.
Winter break is a great example of the theory of relativity. Sixteen days sounds like no time at all if there’s a hammock involved and some umbrella drinks on the beach. It can feel so much longer at home with the festive holiday rain drops and the walls closing in. I’m sure Vancouver Christmases are cursed by annunciation. Someone thinks we’ve been asking for a WET Christmas, not a WHITE one. Maybe next year will be different.
Weather complaints notwithstanding, the holidays are a time to be thankful for square footage. You don’t know what you’ve got until your living room has been invaded by an artificial tree. It seems small enough in the box. Once you unfurl it from its cardboard packaging, it’s like a silly string ambush of tinsel. Christmas is everywhere. We have these pretty window clings that my cats figured out how to peel off, chew up and spit out everywhere, making weird little presents I can’t return.
When the gifts are all put away and the holidays are ending, it can be isolating. It seems like my little guy is EVERYWHERE when I’m hoping for a quiet moment. That crowded feeling ends abruptly when it comes time to take down the tree. In my attempts to return to normalcy in our living quarters, I end up feeling like Chicken Little.
“Who’s going to help take down the garland?” I ask expectantly. “Not I,” said the lazy child enraptured in some random cartoon, covered in leftover chocolate from his stocking. Where the heck is everyone and why am I alone with this tree? I bet I would have lots of company if I pretended I wanted to go to the washroom by myself. Yet here we are.
The tree’s disassembly can wait, as it’s the last day of too much togetherness. I plan to spend it much like he did on our summer road trip, asking “Are we there yet?” incessantly. The only difference is that he can’t reach the thermostat to turn up the heat just enough to induce a nap. Tomorrow, when I drop him off, I’m going to re-enact that awesome Staples ad. After all, “It’s the most wonderful time of the year!”
This is fantastic. I can’t believe I hadn’t read this yet. “I bet I would have lots of company if I pretended I wanted to go to the washroom by myself.” Why is it always “MOOOOOM, I need you,” when I’ve just dropped my drawers and settled in for a little alone time to do my business?
I’m the MVP when I need it to just be me for like five seconds!
Nothing makes me happier than the end of a school break. It’s startling how free my mind suddenly becomes–like, I CAN THINK ABOUT THINGS AGAIN! By extension, there is no bigger bummer than a kid who gets sick the *very* day he is to return to school after, say, ten days off.
Not that such a thing ever happened to me or that I’m still not over it, three years later.
oh my! My sympathies. Let it go 😉 a la Frozen, my friend 🙂