Wednesday. Half way through spring break. Still loving it.

(Actually I think I edited that part out of the Monday post. Basically I said I love vacations with the kids. They’re the best ever. Not because we do anything amazing, but because it’s so nice to be on no schedule. And to just kind of hang out with each other. Everyone gets along better, fights less and finds interesting things to do with their days. And watches movies. We do a lot of that on breaks. And I said I hope posting that on Monday at 8 am doesn’t jinx the week (but I never posted it). Now you’re caught up to the thing I thought but didn’t say.)

Still loving spring break. We’re supposed to be on our way to a trampoline park right now, but one of the kids got the pleasure of being sent to their room for a while and ended up falling asleep. So we’re home for a bit longer till they wake up cheerful and kind.

The rest of the kids are watching movies and I’m finally getting to today’s writing. I’m out of my normal routine and it’s taking me a little while to establish a new one. I probably won’t get it figured out before it’s time to get back to the old routine. I’ll gladly trade trying to figure out something new for the constant of the school routine that is not my favorite. At all.

The kids have been watching a lot of movies lately. Partially while I try to get stuff done that doesn’t work so well with them needing me at the same time. Also because it’s spring break, and as is tradition on all vacations one of the first things we did was go to the library and stock everyone up with a big stack of books and a movie. It takes some time to get through all five of our movies.

Plus, when we moved to this house, it was equipped for movie watching in a way that we’ve never really experienced. The people before us cared about their movie watching experience. For a long time before this place, we never even had a tv. And then when we had a tv, we’d use it to show show the kids the latest funny youtube clips, or to put on something like Sid the Science Kid. As the kids got bigger we’d get movies from the library and they’d be so pumped to share them with their friends.

“Have you seen ____? Wanna come watch it??”

And their friends would be like, “Ummm yes. I saw that four years ago. And about thirty times since.”

My kids would be a little unsure. “Oh. Well, wanna watch it again?”

“Nah” the friend would say.

I’d feel a little sad for my kid, and a little annoyed that the other kid wouldn’t just watch a movie they obviously appreciated. (C’mon, you’ve seen it 30 times since it came out?) Who cares how old it is? A good show is a good show, right? C’mon kid. Get with it.”

Whew! Baggage.

Anyway. Now we watch a lot more movies and TV in general. Although we’re still not super concerned with being up on what’s recently come out. (My middle schooler would disagree and she suffers from curse of parents who aren’t into letting her see everything that comes out. She suffers terribly.)

Sometimes I feel a little like all this watching is screwing them up. It’s never good to get used to sitting around and being entertained. If that’s the norm, we end up having problems. Bored and entitled problems. And sometimes I think, “Oh my word. Movies are the best thing ever. Let me just-squeeze-one-more-thing-in.” Or more often than not, I find myself wanting to just sit down and watch. Not their shows, usually. Shows they really shouldn’t be seeing. My favorites are those super detective shows. The ones that figure it all out through their superior observation or logic skills or whatever. They almost always involve a murder or some horrific crime and I find that’s not really good viewing for the younger set at this house.

(Oh my word. Talk about train of thought, word vomit. What am I even talking about? TV?? This is the most rambly, no point post ever. This, people is what happens when I don’t have any time to include editing. I wonder where it can possibly go from here? Spring break! That’s where I started. Enjoying spring break with the kids. Pull it back around here, Budd)

So, yes. I love spring break and all vacations from school. It can take a little figuring to find a way to still get the stuff I want to do on the day’s agenda, especially since my discovery that the more time I actually spend with the kids, the more they’re nice to each other. It’s a surprising dynamic – if I’m happy to be with them, they’re happy to be with each other. (Is it clear I’m being sarcastic there? On the surprising dynamic bit?  It seems not immediately obvious, and I’m feeling too lazy to go back and make it clearer, so: I’ve got my tongue firmly in my cheek with that whole surprising dynamic bit.) (Wow. that was probably way more work than just going back and writing something clear.) (I think I may be losing it. What is in this tea??)

SPRING BREAK. SO GOOD.

I think it’s clear I’m done here.