I remember when I was in high school and saw a report on the news about the concept of year-round schooling instead of the traditional school year with a long summer break. I was horrified at the idea of having to go to school all year long! I needed that long break from the classroom. Winter break hardly was long enough. Even that one little week of spring break felt like an insult to me.
And now, as a parent with two young children on spring break? Year round school sounds pretty sweet to me. In fact, let’s get rid of spring break, too.
We’re only halfway through spring break and I’m ready to send them back. It doesn’t help that I work an overnight shift, requiring me to either find a babysitter or remain on the couch in a sleepy, hazy fog as I let them destroy the living room and watch far too many episodes of Go, Diego, Go while I try to nap in-between arguments over who gets to sit in the purple chair or who gets to play on the iPad next.
Beyond that, both of my children are creatures of habit who do not like their routines disrupted. Mira isn’t too bad, but Cordy needs her routine. She knows that she has five days of school, followed by two days that are more unstructured. So when Monday arrived and she was on day three of no school routine, she quickly became irritable, hyperactive and whiny. The most exciting thing we did that day was go to the grocery, and even that was a quick trip for fear of child meltdown. The cashier didn’t even card me when I bought wine. He knew.
My mom came over yesterday to spend the day with the girls, and of course the weather was wet and cold, so they stayed in and colored eggs for Easter. If it wasn’t for my earplugs, I probably wouldn’t have had any sleep.
The weather is better today and my mom is coming again (hooray!!) to take them to the zoo. (Double hooray!!) I’m looking forward to sleeping six hours.
Friday, however, will be devoted to my girls. Whatever they want to do, we’ll do. (Within reason, of course.) I feel bad that I’m so tired most of the time and can’t give them the attention they deserve. My mom worked full time, also, and I remember always wanting more time from her than she could give me. When I lose my temper with Cordy or Mira just because I’m tired, I get angry with myself as well because I know that they only want my time. Time is so hard to come by, though.
But I don’t work on Friday night, so I’ll fight the exhaustion to have a fantastic day with my daughters and remember why I love having them around so much.
And then I’ll sign them up for summer camp on Monday.
We are very lucky to have our daughter in a year round school, which isn’t as bad as it sounds. She gets the whole month of Aug off, and several shorter breaks through the year to end up with the same amount of days in the school year. They also loop grades, same teacher 2 years in a row. For us as a family and her as a learner, this makes so much more sense. Old style summer break is based on an agricultural family system that is very outdated. Year round school is the best!
Working full time overnights, I’m definitely with you on the mommy guilt, but we do what we have to, to provide food, clothing and shelter. Hang in there, you are a good mommy.