Hellobee

{And why it won’t happen on Summer Vacation.}

We just wrapped up Spring Break here. I’m torn between shouts of “We survived!” to laments of “I wish we had…” It’s a very bittersweet end to the vacation/start to a new week. A “normal” week if you will. But, regardless of the feelings of bitter and sweet… I did learn some very important lessons to carry over to summer vacation. And maybe I’ll save a fellow bee or two some heartache along the way.

{I should preface this with the fact that, for us personally, this was just an ill-timed week to have no school. I’ve just returned to working, my husband is under crazy deadlines, Mini Michelangelo is in a mental growth spurt, and Pint-Sized Picasso is still really new to the family and still having a hard time with the adjustment. And neither boy is a “sit at home and play” kid. While I took this into account… I didn’t weigh these factors as heavily as I should have. Hopefully, these factors will evolve by summer… but I’m not counting on it. I’ve learned my lesson!}

{Excavating for dinosaur fossils}

Things I should have done:

1. Set expectations early. And then repeat, repeat, repeat.
I feel like everyone at Mini Michelangelo’s school has been talking about April vacation since February vacation ended. Except for me. So Mini came home from school the week before with grandiose ideas of what our vacation was going to be like… completely influenced by his classmates. Unfortunately for him, we were not off to a tropical island with a beachside cabana, off to the midwest to help his grandparents sow this year’s crops (we do not even have grandparents in the midwest… unless Pennsylvania has been relocated while I wasn’t looking?!), nor was he enrolled in a week-long camp to become a junior zookeeper… Although I may seriously reconsider that for next year! It had never occurred to me that fellow students were going to have such interesting and exotic plans lined up, so I never really played up our—rather mundane—plans.

2. Have plans set up. And back-up plans too! (and maybe even back-ups to the back-ups.)
I had a loose list of things we could do… somewhere. I’m sure I’ll find it on a counter next week. I did have a couple of things on the calendar… but I really should have been more diligent about having activities planned, or at the very least a schedule, for every day. And I should have had at least one set of alternate plans ready to go. The day we had planned to meet friends at the zoo, we had torrential downpours. The day we had decided to go rock collecting at the town beach, we had winds gusting over 30 mph. [Note: Don’t go to the beach with littles when it’s windy. Ever.] So both days I found myself winging it and it resulted in two kind of “blegh” days. It was fine… but I wish that I hadn’t been planning on the fly all week long… that is really, really tiring. I also should have included some more “down time” type of activities here. One day we baked together… I probably could have done that twice. And there are lots of other crafts and science experiments that I have since thought of that I just wasn’t prepared for.

3. Have the menu plan nailed down. But, still be flexible.
I  blew it three nights out of five on the dinner front. I had two crock pot meals ready to go… I should have done five. Or planned easy-to-pull-together meals for the other nights. My mistake was based on the best intentions… I was planning Mini’s favorite meals that we don’t often have because time is always tight between the end of the school day and dinner time. But after creating a “fun and exciting day,” the last thing I wanted to do was cook a big dinner. I had also planned to go out to one of our favorite restaurants “kids eat free” nights since it’s hard to take advantage of on a weeknight. But by Wednesday night, we were too fried to be presentable… and when I called to see if there was a wait, it was longer than expected and would have put us past bedtime. Bad meal planning was my most expensive mistake seeing as we ordered take out two of those nights and that wasn’t in the budget.

4. Consider getting some extra help.
We  have a neighborhood full of tween-aged girls all dying to babysit my two cuties. I should have talked to a few of them about being mother’s helpers for a couple of hours during the week. I know from the grapevine that $20 would have bought me a lot of time and a lot of sanity. While I “took time off” for April vacation, I still found myself working late into the night to keep all my projects on track and managing emails. After a full day of “family fun,” it was really, really rough. (And by Friday at 3pm I was ready to put my head down on the kitchen table and cry. I most definitely wore myself out.) While I stuck to naps/quiet time… it sometimes happened when we were in the car, and it doesn’t happen simultaneously here yet. Which left me NO time during the day to even sit quietly for a few moments. In hindsight, I wish I had taken into account the fact that pretty much everyone we know was off from school, and many were staying close to home. Even just three hours on Wednesday morning to do some work/a quick clean/regroup would have gone a long way.

5. Go easy on myself!
Granted, I didn’t need to provide fun and exciting activities every day. (And yes, some of this was to “keep up” with the others’ grand plans… I fully admit that.) But… I have so little time with Mini these days, and honestly all the activities we did were some of the ones I’ve been missing as well. I completely realize that I created this situation. I’m not the superwoman I thought I was and didn’t have it in me to work long hours post-bedtime after a busy day. I did manage a couple of hours every night, so all was not lost. That said, I was exhausted by the end of the day and should have had a little time for me scheduled in. I also wish I had planned for one night of take-out (I say planned so no guilt) and budgeted for it. I also wish I had a planned (and budgeted!) for a treat for me at the end of the week… movie, pedicure, whatever!

{Taking a hiking break to collect rocks}

Things I did right:

1. Stuck to bedtime. (And nap time.)
I have two notoriously bad sleepers… and we are just now (know on wood) getting to the point where we sleep through the night. Most of the time. So even though we are on school vacation, and it’s staying light out later and later… bedtime was non-negotiable. We hit it every night but one… and then it was because everyone went to sleep early! Nap time stood too. While Pint-Sized is the only one who still sleeps, Mini still needs the time for his body to be quiet. His school has “quiet time” from 12-1, and I’ve almost got Pint-Sized on the same schedule… and that’s what we rolled with. Even if it meant excusing ourselves from a playdate or an outing to sit in the car for a bit.

2. Hit our favorite spots.
We hit our favorite spots that we never seem to have time for these days… zoos, the children’s museums, the bookstore, the cafe, and many a playground that’s “too far” to go to after school. Most of these places had special events planned for the week-long vacation as well… which brings me to my next point.

3. Took advantage of many of the local events.
Around here, every. single. place. seemed to have kid-friendly events. All week long. Everywhere we went there were special programs and events planned. Even our local bookstores had extra story times and projects. Add in that it was also Earth Day and the options were endless! (Which means I really have no excuse for not having more solid plans.) We took advantage of several “keeper chats” and a couple of “Earth Day” centric events too. I kind of knew which ones would most appeal to my kiddos, and worked backwards from those. This could have been a very expensive week with all the places we hit, but I worked with all the reduced/free admission days, special member perks, and other deals I found in the paper. Mini Michelangelo learned some really neat things (he can tell you all about river otters and wind energy), had some cool experiences (anyone want to feed a shark?!), and made some really fun projects (why yes, that is a fish tail on his head)… all for free. But, be warned… these events and programs bring out the masses. If you aren’t good in crowds, avoid it at all costs. Seriously! I coped by arriving early, having games and activity books to kill time, and packing three times the amount of snacks I thought we could eat. (Neither kid felt like it was “jam-packed” even if I did.)

4. Kept my cool. 
I’m not big on crowds, so this week was trying at times… there were always lots of people it seemed. Everywhere! (Except for when we went to the playground in the rain… go figure.) But I went in with the attitude of “no matter what, I will smile and roll with whatever I’m dealt with.” I smiled in the car on the way to our destination… just to practice! The true test came when we got hung up leaving the museum (we literally couldn’t get out the door because of all the people waiting to come in)… I was running (and I do mean running) down the street with one kid in the stroller, one on my hip, jackets in the other arm, and my diaper bag and our cooler bag bouncing against me. I turned the corner to see a ticket on my car and 7 minutes still on the meter. Huh. (I’m contesting it, don’t you worry.) But, I just smiled and moved on to loading the car up. There were several other blips and “unsavory” moments, but being intentional about my attitude meant that they didn’t ruin my day… or, more importantly, the boys’ day.

5. Budget. 
We are certainly not in the position to be renting a cabana on the beach this week, but I knew that this week also wouldn’t be the same financially as a normal week in our house. I planned most of our events around places that we are members, or places that have no cost for entry (i.e. bookstores and playgrounds). That said, I knew we may not make it out of the bookstore without a new book and that I would not leave the zoo without a pretzel (it’s my guilty indulgence). The week before vacation I sat down and figured out what it would realistically cost a day/event, then added in extra for gas and coffee stops. (No, really, I needed something to keep me going!) I then took the money from our savings account and used that for all expenses. It was the easiest way for me to track how I was doing on the spending. Unfortunately, I hadn’t planned for the dinner fiascos, so I came in over budget… but aside from that, I did well. I also should have budgeted for water purchases since both boys went through the water I packed for them, and water was shockingly hard to come by at times.

6. Document it all.
Two words. Show and Tell. I’ve been to this rodeo before (aka “After Winter Vacation”) and learned that five-year-olds really like to brag share about the big adventures they have had.  We didn’t sow seeds, and we weren’t hanging out in a cabana… but what we did do was documented. For us that meant taking iPhone photos, printing them out, and Mini writing a sentence or two about the activity. I even allowed him to borrow my phone to take the photos! (Two exceptions: I had to take the photo if it was dangerous to him or the phone and then he would direct me, or if he was doing something cool that he wanted to remember or tell Daddy about. For example, I took the picture of him feeding the shark.) Not only does he have a solid Show and Tell presentation (or five!) lined up, he worked on his writing skills too. Granted, I’ll spend a good chunk of time deleting all the photos of his thumb, the sky, and random gross stuff that he encountered along the way off my phone… but I feel good about letting him “be in charge” of how we remember this time.

As I said in the beginning… I did learn from this vacation and plan to utilize those lessons moving forward. While I could get away with a lighter workload for a week, I can’t get away with that for three months. So, in the next few weeks, I plan to strategize for summer vacation, to make it one that we all enjoy… and survive!

{Burning off energy at a “far away” play place.}

What I plan to do different this summer:

1. Consider a week-long camp or two.
I initially wrote off camps as being “too expensive” for us. But after some initial research, it seems like several are not only within our budget, but also in Mini Michelangelo’s “wheelhouse.” I had no idea the plethora of camp options available these days! This week I plan to dig deeper on several of them. While I don’t want to enroll him for the whole summer, I do think it would break up the monotony for him… and offer me some solid work time (given that I find child care for Pint-Sized.)  The added benefit of keeping him engaged with learning and challenged by new experiences would be icing on the cake.

2. Put together a box of crafts/experiments/baking.
We have a “rainy day” box of activities that we busted into this past week… but I need to update it and revamp it. Let me tell you… you don’t want to realize that your “rainy day box” is lacking or missing supplies when you need it most. I found this out the hard way! I’ve got lots of ideas pinned and now I plan to organize and stock up before school’s out for summer.

3. Look into a Mother’s Helper.
Like I said above… I need to consider this. I can’t take three months off, but I’m lucky enough that I work from home and I get paid an hourly wage. It would more than cover a mother’s helper a few mornings a week. After this past week, I know I won’t be able to parent all day and then work all night. By investing in a Mother’s Helper, I’d be able to log the majority of my weekly hours during two mornings.

4. Have my husband plan some time off/boys days out.
We’re not planning any trips away this summer… but my husband will still have vacation time to use. August is looking like it will be my busiest time of the summer, so I’m planning for him to schedule in a few vacation days and take the boys out for some fun “manly” time. I guess you could argue that it’s another version of the Mother’s Helper, but the difference here is that the boys and my husband will have some time to create memories as well.

 What am I missing? Have any of you already been down this path? Got any tips for a first-timer?!