Enjoying quiet days without the kids?

I love having my older kids home from school. Vacations mean that we don’t have to rush to wake up and get out the door to be on time for school. There is not nearly as much laundry – but twice as many dishes lol.

After the Holiday break they went back to school for a few weeks & now are on vacation again. While it was nice to have some time to myself during the week, it was so hectic, dropping them off, picking them up, trying to remember to get homework done. How is it possible for such young kids to have so much homework!?!

While they have been at school, I have been working on getting the house back together. I finally got the Christmas tree down, which is just no fun. Spending the day with the family, driving into the mountains to get a tree, picking it out & cutting it down – that is fun. Spending the next few days drinking hot spiced cider & decorating the tree – that is fun. Everything leading up to the holidays is fun, the music, the cookies, waiting for family to come, picking the perfect gift for every one – that is fun. Taking the tree down is not fun, telling the kids it is all over is not fun. Stripping the walls of holiday drawings, taking down the lights, eating the last of the cookies – none of it is fun!

We all miss the excitement of the holiday. Now it is just back to bed on time, running around, remembering to have the right foods for school lunches, extra laundry. It is just too quiet here with half the family gone back to school & working outside of the house.

The kids are on vacation again, a long 4 day weekend! Extra days of staying up later, extra family game nights & movie nights. So I guess it was not just the holidays that made everything so exciting – it was having the kids home. I miss my older kids when they are gone & so do the younger kids. Sometimes they just get bored playing with mama & just want to play with each other. When I am making meals, cleaning up or taking care of the other children, they bounce around the house waiting for mama to be done or for brothers to be home.

Yeah, I did get a lot done while the kids went back to school. I started editing some pictures of jewelry that have been sitting on my computer for months. I have been working on filling my Etsy store again & adding new pieces there. I have also been reorganizing my website working on changing a few things that weren’t quite right, adding a few things – I started making wire wrapped rings & created a page for those – even though there is nothing there yet – I have lots of pictures of my rings on my computer ready to be edited & added to my website & to Etsy & they should start showing up on both sites in the next few weeks.

I can also get lots of work done while the kids are home. I don’t have to stop what I am doing in the middle of a thought to go get them. They have moments where they want to go off on their own & build lego Star Wars or play some Scholastic game on the computer – and all is quite, but the thing is, it’s not. I can hear the clicking of the legos & the music of the game. I can hear my oldest reading a book to his little brother, helping him learn how to read. I can hear the baby laughing at his big brothers while all three of them dance around him to some silly song on Sesame Street. Sure they need me when they spill a bowl of cereal, or are sick of each other & want me to read them a book. Some things they can’t do without mama, like get out the paints or glue or play-doh – but that is OK, I can get up and walk away from my work any time, there is no schedule, there is no “we are late for school” or “oops I forgot to help you with your homework”. We can stop to play when ever we want and still have time to get things done. We can pull out workbooks and learn how to read, figure out math or play matching games too.

I think I enjoy quiet – or not so quiet days with my kids far more than I enjoy those not so quiet days without them.