I am alternatively loving and hating these school holidays.
For those not familiar with the Aussie school year, we (generally) break for summer around mid-December (sometimes later in states other than my own, I hear) and return for a new school year in the last week of January, a vacation of (roughly) 6 weeks. The school year is divided into four terms, each about equal (slight deviations depending on things like when Easter falls) at 10 weeks. At the end of each term, we have 2 weeks of holiday before returning for the next term and then the school year ends in December, as mentioned.
So we’re pretty much smack in the middle of Crazy Town right about now.
I love, love, love the fact that I do not have to worry about such mundane Mummy chores as making school lunches or making sure uniforms are clean. I love hanging out with the kiddos. And I especially love the fact my alarm clock doesn’t go off at dawn o’clock (this night owl don’t get much sleep during the school week, you see).
But GOOD GOLLY I am exhausted!
Vacations are funny things. You have to time them right. Too short and you might as well not bother. Too long, and you wind up feeling more tired when you return, instead of the ‘relaxed like jelly’ deal you were hoping for. Our recent trip away over Christmas was a bit like this. I loved doing the trip, I really did. But there came a point - I believe it was sometime on Day 10, driving along the highway between the second and third sets of relatives - where I was just OVER IT ALREADY.
And it was hot. And I was stinky. Yeah, I’ll own it! If I was home, I could shower all day long if I needed it and then loll about under the aircon. You can’t do that when trying to corral 4 adults and 6 children aged between 4 and 10 into whatever activity is planned that day, and the fact that it was in the low thirties most of the time (that’s around 90ºF for you northern hemispherans) did not help. (I still maintain that I was born on the wrong continent. I’m still planning to move to Canada, LOL) I hate being sweaty. And um? Six children, three of whom were, uh, less used to rules than our kids are? It made for a SUPER peaceful end to our break away.
Coming home was bliss. I will say this though - Talented Hubby has one of the silliest car rules imaginable (made tolerable only because he didn’t throw on his music and allowed me to hook my iPod up instead - although his caveat was, nothing from the ‘Romantic’ playlist, sheesh!). I, as front seat passenger, am not allowed to sleep in the car. My job is therefore to be his ’talking companion’ so he doesn’t get too tired on long car trips. Have you ever tried to exist for twelve straight nights in a sleeping arrangement where everyone is at arms length from everyone else? There wasn’t a lot of sleep going on. To then get in a car, where everyone kind of pipes down, the kids tend to fall asleep anyway, the road undulates in the heat and your eyes get lower…and lower…and lower until suddenly you’re fightin’ the Sandman and deciding you don’t care because at this point, sleep - even the sort where you’re sitting upright in a bouncing seat, using the seatbelt strap as a pillow - feels like a little piece of Heaven and –
POKE!!!
We made frequent highway petrol station stops for caffeine-based beverages and chocolate bars, my friends.
I am supremely grateful we made it home in one piece (there were several holiday deaths over the two states we travelled in) but I would be lying if I said I missed being away from home. Home is WONDERFUL. I shall never complain about home again!
We’ve done not much of anything since returning home on Saturday night. Today was the first day we planned an actual ‘activity’. We saw Bolt at the cinema - which the kids loved and will be, no doubt, pooling their pocket money to buy on DVD in a few months - using a free double movie pass for the adults and paying for the kids’ tickets (still not cheap, around $11 each - how I long for these ’second run/dollar ticket’ cinemas I keep hearing about in the States!) We then stopped off at Blockbuster on the way home. We grabbed Beethoven’s 2nd, Beethoven’s 3rd (how can you resist a blue eyed little girl’s pleas?) The Princess Bride (which, amazingly, I have never seen), High School Musical (we are so late on this fad…but Master J was gifted HSM 2 for Christmas and we’ve been holding off watching it until we got through the first one) and Willow.
We watched Willow this afternoon. It must have been fifteen years since I last saw it, and yet I remembered it nearly word for word - it was one of my favourites as a kid, repeatedly watched on an old VHS we taped off the TV one time. I remember being so petrified of those weird warthog creatures and when Moo jumped out of her skin when they were on screen I secretly congratulated myself on exposing her to yet another of my best childhood memories, LOL. Hey, Talented Hubby gets to play-wrestle and do the whole Lego/Star Wars/Flight of the Navigator deal with the boys. I get the Jane Austen period dramas, Anne of Green Gables and Care Bears!
Hopefully, if I can get my butt into gear after all this Post Holiday Meh, there’ll be something cool happening tomorrow - so stay tuned!
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