Testing Your Love

The holidays are a wonderful thing. I have always loved this season. I love getting together with friends and family. I love decorating my house, although the de-Christmasing takes me forever to get around to. I love the music and the movies. I love the way my kids' eyes light up on Christmas morning. I always loved being out of school or work for the holidays, like Christmas made time stand still. However, now that I am a parent with kids home for the holidays, I am so ready for the madness to end. If I hear that my kids are bored one more time after they have a room full of new toys that I have yet to find room for, I may have a breakdown. If I have to yell one more time to leave your brother alone or stop fighting or just be quiet, I may commit a felony. It is so funny how the same time of year that brings so much joy to my life can also bring so much frustration and aggravation. I love my children to the depths of my being. However, school vacations can most definitely test the true depth of that love. When I was a student, I would have cringed at the idea of year-round school, but as a parent....bring on the long school year. Dear State of Idaho, first and foremost you need to get with the program and realize that all-day kindergarten is the only way to go. Parents dream of the day their kids go to school for this reason. For those of us who stay home, we dream of having the hours to actually get things done. For those that work, they are looking forward to childcare expenses disappearing (or at least lessening) and no longer being childcare poor. We would also contend that even in the poorest states, children go to kindergarten all day. Also, while you are at it, look into the benefits of a year-round school year. The benefits of not having a bunch of bored adolescents roaming the streets for two months during the summer alone should be enough to consider it. I would love for my kids to be education forcused all twelve months out of the year. If I could do this myself, I would homeschool. Let's face it, I have enough trouble getting them to put their shoes away and put the seat down on the toilet, so getting them to do math and read daily is not that easy for me. As you may can tell, I am still stuck in the last days of our holiday break. While the first few days were nice, the novelty wore off a couple of days after Christmas. While we only have one day, you may find that I actually camp out in front of the building on Tuesday night just to make sure that they are at their respective schools at the earliest possible minute that they can be. I am so looking forward to the return to school and normalcy that I can assure you that Wednesday morning I will be like a kid on Christmas. I look forward to maybe having a cup of coffee with some adult conversation, so if anyone is interested, let me know. School will be starting back and I will regain my life again. Although it may not seem like much, those few hours a day are precious and I will never again take them for granted. To all the parents that say they aren't ready for school to go back...either you need to stop lying to yourself or I need to send you my kids because you are much better at this parenting thing than I am.