How many more days...

...of Christmas break?

This is the question I began asking last night.

I've really enjoyed being on Christmas break myself, and have enjoyed having the kids here with me, but I had all these plans of having plans, which I never got around to making. And kids -- at least, my kids -- without plans are CRAZY!

Before Christmas, things around here were wonderful because everything was warm and glittery and smelled like cinnamon. My kids weren't interested in being crazy because they were distracted by all the sparkle and the knowledge that gifts can be returned. At Christmas, we were all distracted by family, games, and baked goods. Those few day after Christmas were also filled with distraction as everyone was engaged by new toys.

But then New Year's Eve came, and somewhere around 10:30 P.M., I realized I was all holiday-ed out. I wanted to get home, vacuum up all the glitter, and go about life as normal. New Year's Day was spent playing games and de-Christmas-ifying the house. Every leftover met the disposal or the trash. Every box and bit of wrap was packed away or sent to the recycling. I thought we'd spend the week at home or doing some things casually -- you know, without it being scheduled in my planner. I realize now that I should have done some scheduling, and I should have waited until January 7th (the day school starts again) to "return to normal."

The kids went to bed fine on the night of the first, but by the morning of the 2nd, they were totally new people. Up until then, we'd had a fantastic break together -- full of love and cuddling and really good memories -- all things that made me really sad to think of them returning to school soon. On the 2nd, though, everything changed. I don't know if it was the fact that there was no glitter to distract them, or that the disposal had eaten the last of the cinnamon-scented goodies, or that there was no tree around to guilt them into good behavior. Whatever the catalyst for change was, I cannot tell you how many times in the last two days I have repeated the following phrases:

"Do not put a hole in that!"
"You, stop looking at your sister. And you, stop looking at your brother."
"Three things belong in the toilet, and that's not one of them."
"The couch is not a trampoline."
"Get your feet/hands/behind/eyes/mouth off of that!"
"Please tell me why you just put a hole in that?"

Imagine two very loud, very obnoxious tornadoes trapped in my family room, and a very unkempt me repeating those phrases until my repeater breaks, and that's the last week of Christmas break for our family. What fun.

As a result, we now have a plan. We're getting away from home. Not far, but just far enough to distract the children into sanity. In an attempt for them to burn energy without breaking furniture, we're spending the night at an indoor pool. (I mean, a hotel with an indoor pool.) Swimming is an excellent way to burn calories and energy, they can't shout if they're underwater, and if they misbehave, I can poke a hole in their pool toys. Just kidding -- that is until Squeaky the Rubber Squid meets with a very untimely death.