Spring Break.  The phrase that used to be synonymous with fun, sun, and idleness.  Before I had kids.

When I didn’t work outside the home, Spring Break meant long days with my overly excited children, trying to come up with ways to occupy their time so they wouldn’t kill each other or I, them.  The words, “Spring Break” struck fear into my very heart.

Now that I’m working, I was excited about Spring Break.  I looked forward to it, marked the days until I could sleep past 5:30, stay up late blogging or watching movies, go to the spa, get a haircut, go to the zoo.

Psshht.

Here it is, Friday, the last day of Spring Break and I haven’t watched a movie.  This is the only blogging I’ve done, I’ve barely been outside the house except to take my kids to the doctor, I didn’t get a massage or a haircut, and I didn’t take my kids to the zoo.

Side note:  NEVER NEVER tell your kids you’re going to take them somewhere over Spring Break.  Trust me, you’ll regret it.  Something will come up.  A hurricane in Disney World or your sewer will back up and you’ll have to spend the Lego Land money to have feces pumped out of your yard.  Instead, the night before you want to leave, let the kids stay up really late, wake them up early, give them a Benadryl, load them into the car, tell them you’re taking them to the dentist, and drive while they sleep. That way, if your engine blows up on I-95, they’re happy.  No tears or accusations on their part and you’ll be guilt free.  And if, by some miracle, you actually make it to your destination, you’re a hero!

So how did I spend my Spring Break?  Doing all the crap I can’t do while I’m at work.  Making phone calls, scheduling doctors’ appointments, getting my son a pair of glasses to replace the ones he lost months ago, and Spring cleaning.  Oh my, the cleaning.

You’d think that since 10 short months ago we literally had Nothing, I wouldn’t have much junk.  You’d be wrong.  We have loads of useless crap.  Aside from broken motherboards and pieces of old VCRs (mother of a 13yo geek-in-training–and proud of it, I might add), shoes I’ll never wear, purses I’ll never carry, and toys my kids outgrew three years ago,  there are the clothes.

When you have nothing, you take everything, especially clothes.  Well, I took too much.  Doing laundry for 7 people is time-consuming but imagine if everyone has enough clothes to last an entire month?  You know how, when you’re tired from working, you’re perfectly content NOT to do laundry as long as someone has something to wear to school the next day?  (No?  Well, maybe that’s just me.)  So I let the laundry ride.   This week, I had to catch it up.  As I was busy running around town to doctor’s offices and whatnot, I didn’t have time to fold it.  As usual, I dumped it on the couch, with plans to fold it all in one giant Laundry Party (that’s the only kind of party I’m having these days.  *sigh*)  Before I knew it, I had Mount Kilimanjaro in my living room.

Mt Kilimanjaro. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I got out the garbage bags.  I folded and tossed like a madwoman.  Before long I had 5 garbage bags full of clothes ready to go to the Goodwill and still too many clothes to fit in the drawers.  I eyed the kids’ piles of clothes and decided they really didn’t need 3 sets of yard work clothes.  I mean, they don’t even do yard work.  I reduced again.  At this point, I was tossing every 3rd shirt.  Hope they weren’t particularly attached to any of them.

Add to the laundry cleaning up after my highly inquisitive 2yo that likes to paint her body with fingernail polish and dump everything on the floor, especially the contents of salt shakers and shampoo bottles, and refereeing fights between all five kids and you have a very good idea what my Spring Break was like.

I can’t wait until Monday.

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How about you?  You do anything fun for Spring Break or was it as awful as mine?

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