april fools day

The blustery March Wind blew in last night- a Northeaster.

Of course, it’s April. Spring has been late this year.

My house sounds like a ship when it blows—beams creaking as though we are on a choppy sea. It gives me comfort that my ship is warm and dry after more than a hundred years moored in this spot.

The birds were singing—it’s been so long since I have heard that! when I left the house this morning at the crack of dawn, off to my Spring Break camp where I am locked in a room with 30 kids for 9 hours a day. The new state of child rearing. I am well paid to bring up others children even as I neglect my own, because childcare shifts are always more than 8 hours to accommodate the parents work schedule……
We hiked to the library yesterday past enormous rain puddles. We compared and contrasted the buds on various bushes and trees and we saw the aftermath of a spectacular car crash. It was an exciting walk, if not all that poetic. It is mud season. I am still waiting for green amongst the brown and black.

It is spring break week, which means while my kids are home shredding my house because I can't afford childcare other than my work at home husband, I am locked in a room with 30 or so kids whose parents can’t get the week off, running a highly enriching program which decimates me and the rooms we are in by the end of the week. I roll out this lovely classroom, art studio from a closet, completely turning a bare conference room into a stimulating creative environment for a theme based exploration of something that appealed to me way back when the copy was due last fall. My hubby will be ready to divorce me by Friday without liberal applications of alcohol and frantic homecooked meals which I have to cook after standing on my feet for 9 hours. Last year I wore a pedometer—11,000 steps and I never left the first floor of the building. When I run around after kids, I really run around. But I like to believe I hand em back at the end of the day at least as tired as I am…..

My laundry won’t get done this month.

Spring break is an archaic and quaint idea when 75% of parents of both genders are working. You only get 2 weeks a year off and you need one of them for the last week in August when school is out and NO ONE has a program you can sign your kids up for. ( I can’t find one single staff person so I am not going to run a program)And you need one week for Christmas. If your kid gets sick or your mom in Cleveland needs surgery, well you are plumb out of luck if you have used up your weeks and you don’t work for a company big enough to entitle you to FMLA. I have to say—keep all those breaks so I can continue to earn a fine living raising your kids for you. But really, isn’t it time to Reinvent the wheel?