The public school kids are off all next week. I ran this piece last year and I still feel exactly the same way. This year, Dawta has the week off. Sun, now that he’s in private school, only has two days off. Luckily we’re not going anywhere since they have different vacation schedules.

I
am bracing for next week’s school vacation. On the one hand, I love the
break from the routines of school. Dawta can sleep late and that’s a
good thing. They need the rest but we won’t will have to pull our
difficult-to-wake teen out of bed in the morning and push him out the
door. Honestly, everyone, including parents, could use a respite from
the relentless pressure of homework, school admissions, and the daily
grind.

Vacations are, theoretically, a great time to expose your children to the wonders of the
metropolis. The fantasy city vacation includes trips to Central Park to
see The Gates, the museums, Broadway shows, sights of interest, and
places they’ve never been to before (see Vacation Brainstorm below).
Congrats if (and that’s a big IF) you can get the kids on-board for such ambitious and
edifying excursions.

On the minus side, the mid-winter break is a sudden break from MY
routine and that’s tough. I like my routines and I need them. When the
kids finally get to school in the morning I sing a quiet, "Halleluah!"
Not because I don’t love being with them. It just that morning
drop-off  means I can devote myself to my work and some of the other
things in life that matter to me.

I am a private self and a public self, a family self and a single
self. All these selves manage to co-mingle rather nicely most of the
time. But vacations sometimes throw me for a loop. That’s when I need
to be all my selves at once. It’s a challenge to find time for
scintillating vacation activities, work, errands, and other
responsibilities. ALL AT THE SAME TIME.

It can be pretty schizzy and can lead to a quiet longing for my
normal routine: A counting the days until the kids get back to school
and we can all get back to what we were doing before the vacation.