White Knuckle Parenting: Surviving Winter 'Break'

You should have heard me last week. I was all, "Geez, you'd think the schools would at least have given the kids Friday off!" I was outraged, outraged, I tells ya!

Cut to yesterday. Christmas was over and I was facing eight straight days of full-time parenting. This realization was made worse by my secondary realization that my husband has plans to go out of town by himself for three days at the end of the week. Then there was my tertiary realization that I had not made adequate plans to fill those eight days of togetherness.

I am currently furious that MCPS doesn't make kids go back to school, say, tomorrow.

I am nothing if not wildly contradictory.

So, what to do with my kids during all this together time? Well, I can tell you how yesterday went:

8 a.m.—My kids: "Yay! We have all new toys to play with, Legos to build, and books to read! Yay!"

9 a.m.—Me: "HOW CAN YOU BE BORED ALREADY?!"

So what to do with the rest of the week?

I do have Tuesday all taken care of because Jack, my middle son, has a dentist appointment—in Virginia. It's a long story as to why we drive out past Dulles (!) to have his teeth cleaned, but suffice it to say that it involves autism, sedation, and many tears. Mostly mine. Also suffice it to say that his teeth cleaning and the associated driving will take up a good chunk of the day. We might even stop to see the old space shuttle at the Air and Space Museum they hide out there.

Wednesday is the one day we have fun plans, which are to participate in a mini-tournament of the area's special needs hockey teams. Jack plays with the Montgomery Cheetahs and will have two games in the middle of the day, which will make for a nice break between, "Mooooom, can we play video games?" in the morning and, "Mooooom, he played more video games than I did!" in the evening. 

Unfortunately, when one kid will be happy and engaging in physical activity, that means I will have two other kids whiny and wandering around shivering at an ice rink.

Lest you feel that Jack has gotten unfair attention early in the week, you should be happy to know that I have planned post-Christmas dentist appointments for the other two on Thursday. (One year, I scheduled their dentist appointments for the day after Halloween because I am that mean.)

Thursday is also the day that my husband leaves for his trip. Last month, when I bartered a few days away with a friend in exchange for his short trip this week, it seemed like a great idea. Now that my trip is over and he is abandoning me during my time of need, our deal seems like something I should be angry and resentful about.

Thus ends my planned activities for winter "break," which, honestly, should have a better name. (Winter break-mommy's-spirit?) I know that the next few days would be so much easier if I gave in and let them play video games all day, but I just can't do that. Some deranged part of me feels that we should be productive and engaged.

Looking at our unplanned time, I figure that if you subtract time spent sleeping, eating, and engaged in healthy physical activity, I should only have about 18 hours to fill each remaining day with fun, supervised activities.

School will re-open Tuesday morning, signaling the return of alarm clocks and lunch packing and the loss of days full of my adorable kids. I will look back fondly on the week I was able to spend with them, forgetting the whining and remembering only the smiles and intimate Lego-building hours.

But then I will notice that one of my children has a fever. Or a headache. Or the plague. And he will not be able to return to school, thereby destroying my dreams of six hours of time alone in my home. And I will cry.

Looking at the next few days in advance has shown me that I need to do some proactive parenting. I'm going to take all that whining and try to turn it into winning! Good luck this week, my friends. I think we're going to need it.

Jean, a.k.a. Stimey, writes a personal blog at Stimeyland; an autism-events website for Montgomery County, Maryland, at AutMont; and a column called Autism Unexpected in the Washington Times Communities. You can find her on Twitter as @Stimey.