Today was my spring break and I was so relieved and thankful for my still and quiet house. Can you relate?

Everyone went back to school and I got my break from the noise, continuous clutter stream, chaos, constant requests, and conflicts. Thank you to the teachers for taking over again today!

Typically on Monday mornings I exercise right after the kids leave. Today I was so happy that no one was home and I had the house all to myself. I decided to watch a movie first thing in the morning for three reasons. One, I usually fall asleep during movies when it’s night time. Secondly, Pili told me about the Book Thief and that I should watch it because the little girl in it reminded her of Juliana and that it was a good movie. It’s been on my list and I picked it up from Red Box yesterday but fell asleep last night before I could watch it! Finally, I just wanted to relax before working again and I wanted to be in my house and this sounded like pure luxury to me. Of course, I folded all the laundry while watching so it wasn’t completely just quiet time doing nothing, not that there is anything wrong with that. The movie was great by the way, and I highly recommend it.

I love my kids and having them home with me and actually really enjoy their company and personalities, but when we don’t have structure for a week, my job gets a lot more challenging and constant without many breaks. I got a taste of what summer will be like and I think I’m going to start planning some activities and outings right away.

I’m all for unstructured days and going with the flow, but my kids would prefer to sleep in and the. spend 8 hours looking at their electronic devices and I’m looking for a little more stimulation, movement, and learning than that.

I am going to have them help me with the planning, especially on the days we don’t have anything particularly planned.

Today I saw that Marianne’s daughter made a list of the things she was going to accomplish and do on her vacation day in Hawaii. She came up with this plan on her own and I love that she created some structure to help her think about how she was going to spend her time.

I think it was Christine L. who once told me that her dad made her do this during the summer days when she was a little girl, and that it helped to manage expectations. The child came up with the first draft, and the parent could edit it and add their suggestions.

I’m thinking if I have my kids do this, it will provide them with more autonomy, and hopefully I’ll have to direct them a little less and I won’t have to think of all the details every day. Go ahead and steal this one. Don’t you think it’s a great idea?

How do you like to plan your summer break? Do you send your kids to camp? Stay home? Travel? A little bit of all? Hmmm… Just curious.