Like, No Like, Lah Dat

The kids (and I) have two weeks off from school (and childcare).

I like it because:

1. I can sleep in until 8:00am instead of waking up at 6:15am.
2. No one needs to scurry around gathering their school stuff before heading out the door.
3. RO, JO, and SO generate much less laundry. When they aren't in school I don't follow standard societal protocol which suggests new outfits must be worn daily. (CO generates plenty of laundry on her own though because she is in the midst of potty training. And she strips down every time she needs to tinkle.)
4. The kids have loads of time to learn new responsibilities. I have this program I follow that breaks down into age groups all the practical things a child needs to learn before they hit 18. They have one-on-one training sessions with me before the task lands on their growing arsenal of mastered jobs that I can then make them do whenever the mood strikes.
5. The kids got some new games for Christmas that we've been playing and playing. Perfection and Hungry Hungry Hippos are my favorites, Yahtzee is stressful, and Wheel of Fortune is nifty, but loud. See #3 below.

I don't like it because:

1. CO won't take naps. And she still needs a daily nap. Now instead of noticing that she's "sweepie," sucking her thumb, and falling asleep, she routinely screams and throws a fit at 11:00am.
2. Toys are everywhere. If it wasn't for RO and JO's love for turning on their beloved Roomba (which belongs to the kids, we'reevilgeniuses!) nobody would ever pick anything up.
3. It's loud downstairs. There's a lot of playing and running around. They do go outside to play, but I don't make anyone go outside. It's cold out there.
4. RO is always telling me he's hungry.
5. I'm feeling lots of guilt because my grant deadline is only two weeks away. I'm writing a 35K federal grant for the high school (cuz I'm nice lah dat) which will help fund a farm to school program. It'll be cool because K-12 will learn about agri-science, 9-12 will maintain a garden in the now-empty space between the high school and the middle school, and eventually, hopefully they'll all eat lots of home-grown food in their school lunches. They also have plans to both sell produce to community members (in lieu of door-to-door fundraisers) and donate excess produce to charity. Cool program, long grant-writing process. I keep telling myself it's not nearly as bad as the successful 50K grant that my friend, Eva, and I wrote in '99. Maybe it's not as bad because now I know what I'm doing. . . I hope! ;)