Vacation: All I Ever Wanted?

Like many of you, I was recently trapped in what everybody's calling the "polar vortex." When it's super-cold outside I usually say it's "cold as balls out here" (because I'm such a lady), but this kind of cold was literally indescribable: no off-color phrases come to mind, which doesn't happen very often. It was just lung-burning, skin-chapping, bone-chilling, nose-hair-freezing cold. (So it's probably a good thing that my leg hair is nearing man-like lengths. Extra insulation, right?)

I don't know how people live in subzero temperatures, like, all the time. Because even though I'm a midwesterner and relatively accustomed to some pretty harsh winters, this positively sucked.

(If you follow me on Instagram - I'm fightingfrumpy if you're on the mobile app - you'd have already seen this picture. Plus photos of things like penis snow graffiti and a downright freaky picture of my toddler and a Barbie with a 'fro and my cat in a lamp. You know, amazing stuff like that.)

Anyway, this extreme temperature caused a school cancellation. Which was on the heels of winter break. Which meant twenty-two straight days of total togetherness with the boys.

It goes without saying that I (usually) adore my kids. I'd do literally anything for those little maniacs. But y'all? I'm pretty sure that if I had been forced to endure one more day of "vacation," my uterus would have voluntarily vacated my body like, "If your husband isn't gonna get that vasectomy then I'm preventing another child my-damn-self."

The time dragged by. When I look back on it, it's pretty much a blur of nude wieners, Ninja Turtle paraphernalia, tattling, wrestling, knock-down drag-out fights, more tattling, video games, tattling about the video games, an appallingly messy house, and me saying, "Put on some underwear!" and "Don't hit your brother!" and "If I hear someone whine one more time ..." and "Don't jump on that!" and "Don't jump off that!" and "You're not really hungry so STOP EATING!"

Because that's another thing. The little hoodlums practically ate us out of house and home. Boys are "snacky" by nature, always pilfering the fridge five minutes after they pilfered it the first time. Combine that with boredom and it's a recipe for a grocery bill that rivals the national debt. And it's like a chain reaction: they could be perfectly occupied with something else, but once one of them decides to get a snack, suddenly the other three are clamoring for the same thing. Even if they're still picking the last snack out of their teeth.

Madness.

Finally, blessedly, school has started again. Two of the boys are gone all day, one is in preschool for two hours, and the baby - well, he's pretty manageable all by himself. All I have to do now is pack lunches, get four children up, fed, dressed, and out the door before eight o'clock, make sure everyone is appropriately bundled up and has everything in their backpacks, load them all into the van, drop two of them off at school, come home for an hour before driving back to the school and dropping my preschooler off, for which I have to walk him inside (and wrangle the baby in and out of the car seat in his puffy winter coat), drive back home, do my household chores for two hours, drive back to the school to pick the preschooler up (again with the baby and the car seat), drive back home, wait three and a half hours, drive to the school yet again and fight the traffic to pick up the oldest two ... in the cold ...

What was I saying again? That vacation from school was terrible?

Maybe I'm ready for spring break after all.




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