Seeking the formula for parenting

Blogger Content: September 2006 - April 2010

Flexible Links

My Blogging Inspiration
Campaign for Unshaved Snatch (CUSS) & Other Rants

Flexible Affiliations


Parent Bloggers Network
- Crazy/Hip Blog-Mamas+
(Random Site)
A Member of Bust's Girl Wide Web
Parenting Blogs - Blog Top Sites
blog search directory
Search For Blogs, Submit Blogs, The Ultimate Blog Directory

Friday, February 20, 2009

February Vacation

When I first moved out here, I was surprised to learn about February vacation. In New England, schools have a well..vacation in February. At first I thought that it was an early spring break, but that is not the case. This break is in addition to the spring break. I wrote a post about it a while ago for the New England Mamas and got slammed by a commenter who felt that I didn't truly understand the historical importance of the February break; something about it being so cold out that schools had to shut down. I have heard all sorts of different theories about why this break exists but the one I've heard the most is that it's supposed to air the school out from germs.

As a kid I remember thinking that the spring break was really far away from the holiday break particularly because I was spoiled by having so many days off in the fall. For the past couple years, I've thought it was great because we used the time to travel to Chicago to see family without having to worry about our older son (OS) missing school. Since it's not a holiday season anywhere else, we always got cheap tickets. This year though there was one big question: "Who exactly is this a vacation for?"

Because we are going into Chicago in July for my cousin's wedding, we are not doing our annual trip. Because I am a Midwesterner, I completely forgot about this February break and thus did not make any sort of special plans. Hence, Monday consisted of me convincing OS, somewhat successfully, that going to the Y childwatch was a special treat. Hadn't he complained about not getting to do what his brother, my younger son (YS) does while he is in school? Why in fact just last Friday YS had gone to childwatch. OS didn't look fully convinced but did agree to go. I had intentionally not gone to the Y earlier that morning so that I could take the kids later in the day, plus have the opporunity to sleep later! I had to prod him to get him actually behind the childwatch gate though and promise we could go to the indoor playground afterwards.

Tuesday was a repeat of Monday. At least I think it was, but honestly the days have all blended together. Wednesday I hosted a babysitting co-op playgroup where my kids were unbelievably whiny and crabby. When other moms are making excuses to you for why your kids are acting like that, such as "It's hard having so many kids at their house" you know one thing: they've noticed how badly your kids are behaving. For the record, it was 3 other kids not 30.

Thursday we went to playgroup where my kids did well. This was followed by a trip to the library where my kids were disappointed to learn that the one eyed fish had gone on to fish heaven. However, the boys were pleased with the other fish so overall the trip was successful. This was followed by TV watching at home. Actually I should just copy and paste that sentence over every day this week because that's been true. Then the Big Giraffe and I had our parenting class, so the boys went to the dinner and daycare that's provided by the class. Well, at least I did. BG had to unexpectedly work late.

Today I once again tried to convince the kids that going to the Y childwatch is a win win situation for everyone; I get to workout and they get to play with other kids and different toys. They looked skeptical. Then I mentioned that some of their friends would be there, since two of my friends were coming to step class with me. They had a really good time. Then all the kids played in the indoor playground. We decided to all go out to lunch. I could just see the look on the patrons' faces when the host led three moms and seven kids to our table at the Olive Garden. It was a "please please please don't seat all those kids by me" type of look. I can't say I blame them.

Despite the widespread panic, the kids did wonderfully. They enjoyed themselves and were well behaved. We moms actually got to have a good conversation. We sat there for two hours. Two hours of good conversation with seven kids! I really think a lot of it was because they had running around beforehand. Plus that particular Olive Garden was just fantastic with the kids.

Afterwards the boys and I went to our church to load food donations into our Director of Religous Education's van to take to a food pantry. She and I had headed up a Valentine's Day food drive. I was worried that the boys streak of good behavior might end, but the DRE had the great idea to give the boys a large plant dolly and have them push the boxes of food on it. The boys loved it and used up any remaining energy. They even went to bed early tonight.

Anyhow, I'm not too sure where I'm going with this post except that it's been a busy week particularly for a week where I didn't have anything planned. Tomorrow we're attempting snow shoeing.

A. Elliot's Lesson Learned: Well behaved kids and kid friendly service made for a great Olive Garden experience.

Labels:

posted by Alex Elliot @ 8:19 PM   1 comments
1 Comments:

  • At 2/21/2009 2:38 PM, Blogger Kami said…

    You know what is hiliarious? We don't get this break in our city but the one 2 hours to the north does! It's not any colder up there let me tell you....

    I think it's a scam myself and yest it's only because we don't' get it.

     
Post a Comment
Home
 

My Profile

Name:Alex Elliot
Home:MA, United States
About Me:Professional Mom of two cats, a dog, an ant farm, and oh yeah...two boys: a 6 year old and a 3 year old. Also found in my house is my husband who is known on this blog as The Big Giraffe.
See my complete profile

Flexible Media Appearances

The Morning Show with Mike and Juliet, Fox TV, August 3, 2007

Flexible Feeds

More Flexible Parenting

Grasshopper New Media Parents
Just Cause
Birth Days

Flexible Categories

Previous Posts

Archives

For those of us who didn't get an instruction manual with our babies and for whom parenting hasn't always gone as planned. On a more serious note this blog is about supporting a woman's ability to make her own choices about parenting including the choice, for whatever reason, to bottle feed her babies formula.

Powered by Blogger
© Formula Fed and Flexible Parenting


Creative Commons License
Formula Fed and Flexible Parenting by Alex Elliot is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License.

Template Design based on one produced by isnaini dot com