I had many plans for projects and trips hidden inside my cerebellum. In the grandiosity of my mental planning, somehow I'd forgotten that Christmas was smack dab in the middle of this scheduled time off.
That shouldn't really affect anything. Maybe if our disposable income were higher or I had informed my Wonderful Wife a few months earlier, we could have created a savings plan, and things would have been different...
I'm pretty happy it has went the way it has, though...
Not often have I had the chance to just " be" with my entire family for an extended time. Every other vacation was spent either running or doing.
That's not a bad thing.
I like vacations away, mountains, lakes or oceans...
Of course, I prefer oceans...
I'm not a fan of agendas, though. I'm not a planner. Most of the time, if decisions are left to me, I will just bumble around and then head toward water...
There I will find the boardwalk and zig zag thru crowds, asking where to get the best food.
Ask the locals what's needed to be seen...
Then grab a meal and hit the hotel pool with Wonderful Wife and McMonkeys in tow...
Projects are another matter. I'm not great at planning them either.
Usually these are planned by my better half...
We made a deal long ago, when we moved into this house. She would decide what she wanted renovated and design the original plan. Choose fixtures, paint colors and any other accessory needed...
Often budget or time constraints hampered many of her planning options.
Sadly, my Wonderful Wife has had to compromise a lot of her vision for the sake of these constraints... Gotta give her a lot of credit. She compromised a lot...
But historically, we have budgeted time and money each year, to fix something.
We had the time, this time, but not the dinero...
So I cooked a lot of meals and did a lot of relaxing. Had the chance to have a lot of unrushed conversations with both my children and Wonderful Wife...
The kids are spending more time with friends. They make their own breakfasts and get their own snacks. If they want to watch Netflix, they know how to use all the remotes...
Aside from the occasional lizard sitting, none of the other miniature members of our family really need a whole lot of direction...
I do need to remind them of things. Homework. Picking up things.
Deodorant...
They are growing up. Much quicker than I am liking...
I stop both moms and dads in stores now, when their tiny little children are screaming, running circles around all the aisles and grabbing every article of candy from the display they can get their grubby little hands on...
As their look bi-polarly swaps from frantic to apologetic to that compressed parental mini rage that is socially inapropriate, yet is evident in every mother or fathers eyes, when surrounded by their own tiny children for any length of time...
... I tell them that believe it or not, they are going to miss these times.
Diapers and formula and the urge to buy one of those child/ backpack/ leashes...
When your kids still actually need you...
They never get it. They give you that look, the pleasant-because they have to be, too tired to be condescending, but knowing that every single word you are saying to them is total bull crap " look"...
They really don't get it... Just like we never got it when parents of tweens told us the exactly same thing...
It's ok... No parent has ever gotten it. Every one of us was too darn busy trying to keep their children alive while figuring this whole " raising child" thing, on the fly...
So like I said, I'm happy it has went the way it has these last twenty four days... I spent a lot of relaxed time with all those I love.
The kids go back to school the same day I go back to work.
That's pretty cool...
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