This Spring break didn’t include any vacation plans. My plans included spending time with my kids. To do this, I knew I needed to really try and “unplug”. Now, I didn’t go total rogue and throw my phone or ipad away. But, I didn’t worry about getting that perfect picture for the blog or do any work for our businesses. Besides a few phone calls, bank runs, and a trip to UPS, I didn’t work much. I didn’t do much of anything except spend time with my kids (like planned) and it was amazing. I did take pictures, of course, but all pictures taken this spring break were candid. As candid as can be when your 5 year old girl poses every time she sees your camera pointed at her…
I do have to admit that the first day of the break was hard, exhausting, and had moments of outbursts.
“How in hell are you not tired yet?”
“Why do I have to cook 8 meals a day?! You didn’t finish anything I’ve made you!”
“For the love of cheese, please leave your brother alone, he is trying to sleep!”
It was an adjustment period, getting used to being on top of each other 24/7. Totally normal.
The last few days were as blissful as they could be with 3 kids, 5 years old and under. Playing and listening to them, and just being in the moment was absolutely amazing. I chose to not pay any mind to the laundry and work piling up. I pretended I didn’t see the 592 unread emails.
What happened this Spring Break was not planned.
We get tummy aches from too much sugar and too many laughs.
We somehow make the worst chore of picking up dog poop in the yard fun by trying to guess how much the bag of poop weighs. We never actually weighed it, but made a logical guess by comparing it to how much Rockwell weighed. We then found out there are companies out there that will pick up the poop for us and talked about how that’s a job we wouldn’t want to have.
We fall on the floor laughing at the silly putty making fart noises in its container. I don’t think all the noises came from the silly putty.
We make obstacle courses in the driveway to get in our exercise, then totally undo all that exercise by eating Chick-fil-A.
You hear the words “mommy, watch this” a million +1 times.
We race down a hill, on bikes, in our neighborhood…after building up some courage.
Your kids give you hug after hug thanking you for spending time with them and taking them to “cool places”.
We pick way too many strawberries, eat too many strawberries (is that possible?) and make Strawberry muffins to get rid of the strawberries.
We try to take naps, but end up having tickle fights. For some reason “quiet time” is really funny.
We watch Moana and Trolls more times than I can count, then walk around the house randomly saying lines from the movies. “You’re Welcome!!” is now always said in song form.
We eat strawberry milkshakes and shortcakes for breakfast at the Strawberry farm. Our sense of mealtime becomes nonexistent.
We go in to clean up the playroom, but end up playing Hungry Hungry Hippos instead. Then leave the playroom totally forgetting why we went in there in the first place.
We take walks to the end of the property to look at the cows and squeal in delight when 3 baby cows walk by.
We take last minute 30 minute trips to the best burger place in town.
Your five year old finger paints an amazing picture of a cat.
We go to Disney just to see the fireworks, but miss half the fireworks when we notice no one is in line at the Peter Pan ride. If you don’t know, Peter Pan ALWAYS has a 50 minute or more wait time.
Growth, love, laughter, and LIFE happen when we chose to unplug for our kids.
