Vacation Balancing Act

This little week in December, (previously known as Christmas week), when the kids and husband are home on vacation. I love the laid back scheduling, playing games, playdates, but not the laundry, vacuuming, cooking, and cleaning up.

In the past, unless we left the house, this week was never a vacation for me. After all I'm the Mom and since when do Moms get time off, even for good behavior? Never. There are still meals to be cooked, dishes to be washed, beds, vacuuming, and there is even more to pick up with the holidays. But this year I think I have found a solution.

I have scheduled in some vacation time for myself. Yesterday the girls wanted to do some cooking and painting with their Christmas bounty. This was after cooking pancakes, a morning playdate, food shopping, and lunch. I pushed them off. Telling them after I ate my lunch I was going to read. And after I finished my book, (I had 20 pages left), we could do some more cooking out of their new book. So they attempted to entertain themselves, and the interuptions to the written word were limited to reading the instructions to a paint by number set, at which point my husband took over the art project, and retying a shoe.

The frozen fruit dessert done, I picked up the next book on my list and started reading while the girls watched a Christmas movie and my husband folded the laundry. (Can you say, MERRY CHRISTMAS! I can!) Later in the day I promised the middle wonder that we would stain enough shingles to finish the roof on her dollhouse. At 3 p.m. that promised was fulfilled. Today we will glue them on and the exterior of the house will be done. This will be a great relief to me and to her. She got this kit Christmas of 1999.

So one day into the vacation, I don't feel like the maid, cook and bottle washer. I feel like the Mom, who has taken a very long shower, helped the kids cook pancakes and make a frozen fruit dessert, finished reading a book, unloaded the dishwasher, lit some candles and started another book, did some food shopping, and watched a great movie with my husband. I might not need a vacation after this week after all.