By The Bootstraps

In my neck of the woods, we have two vacation weeks after the December holidays.  One is in February and the next is in April.  There are eight weeks in between.

Now, before I go too much further, I should stop for a moment and recognize that there are those out there who go far longer between respites.  And they are no doubt thinking, "Eight weeks?  P'shaw!  I could do eight weeks standing on my head!"  I don't deny that it is a fine, fine thing to have the school vacation calendar and that I have ample time with which to fritter away the days.  Eight weeks isn't really all that long in real time.

Kid time is different.

You know how it is those last couple weeks of summer vacation?  You've already done all the family stuff that you said you were going to do back when your kids first came charging off the bus on that last day of school.  Or at least all the stuff that you could realistically stand doing.  You've run through every trick of the parenting trade, made caterpillars out of egg cartons and rented every single movie on the "Family" shelf at the local video place.  Now all you can do is count the hours until the children go back to school so you can get back to doing all the stuff that is hard to do with kids around.  God knows, you still love 'em.  You're pretty sure you'd still take a bullet for them and you haven't gotten around to canceling birthdays yet.  You're just kind of tired.

It's sort of like that.  I do love my job most of the time and the kids entertain me to a degree that you cannot even begin to imagine.  But, we've all been stuck together for a while now and it's hard not to wish for a change of scenery.  We've had the same arguments over work completion and fairness at least twice weekly.  We've seen each other's outfits in every imaginable configuration.  We've been swapping the same stupid cold back and forth for an eternity.  There is no end in sight either.  We have a ways to go.  The best anyone can hope for is a snow day to break things up a bit.  But we are at the point in the school year where too many more of those will result in someone having to step up and plan the school's Fourth of July picnic.  Make up days can be brutal.  So we persevere.  But we get cranky.

And, to add to the tension level, we are also beginning Parent/Teacher conferences this week.  Since I teach in both schools housed in this building, I will be doing double duty for two nights this week.  More time staring at those walls.  At least the kids get half days so that we can fit all the parent meetings in.  But the fifth and sixth grades have different conference days so I shall be teaching one grade or the other while my colleagues get to attend the parent sponsored luncheons provided for our dining pleasure.

You can see where it might get to the point where Ms. Sheep starts counting the days until April Vacation week.  But she doesn't want to do that just yet.  There are still many days to go and this could be disheartening.  And she wants to keep up her generally sunny demeanor for conferences as it is not the fault of the children nor of their parents that the school calendar runs this way.  Lunging forward, grabbing the lapels of some unsuspecting Dad and screaming, "Dear God in heaven, however shall I make it???  I just want five minutes to go to the bathroom...is that too much to ask?" then begging for prescriptions of any size, shape and dosage is generally frowned upon in my profession.

So you find happiness in the little things.  Like the fact that you haven't screwed up The Invisibility Shawl like you did last time because you thought it would be a good idea to knit a bit of it the day you had your cat put to sleep.  (For the record: don't do that.  Just trust me on this one.  You will not be pleased with the results of your needlework)  Or maybe you just happened to decide to wander into your favorite department store today to discover that they were having a sale to end all sales.  Maybe you even found that pair of brown leather ankle boots with the reasonable-but-still-sort-of-fetching heel that you've been looking for since forever and then some.  And maybe those boots were 80% off since the winter season is fast fading.  

Stuff like that will go a long way towards making the trek towards Spring Break seem like something I can do.  Of course, I make no promises.  There is still a chance that I will snap during my dinner break tomorrow night because the only thing left after the feeding frenzy in the teacher's room is the veggie platter.  I'm still holding up pretty well, however there are some variables over which I have no control.

But, should the crazy come to pass, I shall be carried out of the place in a pretty sweet pair of kicks!

SA