The 10 Days of Christmas Vacation

As of this writing, we are winding up Day 7 of our holiday vacation. Daycare is closed for the week between and , so my husband and I are off from work for some quality time with our two small children. The problem is, the bar got lowered on “quality” sometime around Day 5.

These vacations always start off with lofty illusions of how we’ll spend the time enjoying each others’ company and doing fun things together, the reality is that it’s not always so easy to achieve.

I think the problem is that we are all starting to go a little stir crazy. And with the kids on the super young side of youthful – Lucy will turn four next week and Isaac is 19 months old – leaving the house feels like a major endeavor; we’re tired from picking up the house and packing necessities before we even wrestle the kids into their car seats and start on our way wherever it is we are going.

The week started off well enough because it’s easy to hit high notes when there are gifts to give and receive and family to see and eat big meals with. As , things started to go off the rails on Christmas Day, when my son got sick and I quickly followed. Since then it has been about recovery and then slowly feeling like I have enough steam to do anything halfway fun with the wee ones.

The pinnacle of our family fun this week so far occurred on Day 5, when we took a trip to the Kenilworth Mall to see the train garden, where Lucy marveled at the displays and Isaac roamed in and out of stores while periodically shouting, “Yeah!” at the top of his little lungs. My husband managed to leave the house on Day 6 for a trip the Apple Store in the Towson Town Center, where Taps was played for our aging desktop Mac. Later in the day Lucy and I did some overdue grocery shopping at . But I was the only lucky escapee today for a haircut at Cheveux Hair Salon in Hunt Valley.

We simply have to do a better job with our remaining days off. I don’t want to find myself in the middle of another restless whinefest over toys or to endure any additional nap refusals from kids who aren’t the boss of me.