Vacation Day

Myles was...thrilled.

Today, I took a vacation day.  It's Wednesday.  I used to be off every Wednesday.  Last week, I had a rough week.  I emailed Ben and (in a slightly whiny written voice) about never having a day off anymore to do fun things with my kiddies.  His answer... "Plan a vacation day."  Duh!  Not sure why it took him telling me what to do to think of that.

The day didn't start out exactly as we imagined.  A snow day kept us home from Jillian's field trip ice skating.  The bright side?  Myles was home for the day with us!!  Bonus!  After three calls to different ice skating rinks in the area, we found an open skate and planned our day around it.  We made our own field trip for the day.

The kids have never been skating.  They had these grandiose ideas of figure eights and gliding on the ice.  Jillian had planned to "step, step, glide".  Yeah, sure...  And...well...I'm not exactly graceful...in shoes, let alone skates.  We managed to last all of 15 minutes.  In fact, I think it took longer to lace up our skates than we spent on the ice.  They had no supports for tiny tots, so Myles was dependent on the wall and I held both of Jillian's hands.  Myles fell a dozen times at least.  It was so adorable to watch his little skates do a cartoon style run trying to stay balanced...falling every time.  We chalked it up to a fail.  We'll try again some other time.

Then, it was on to the Children's Museum.  There was a new Africa exhibit and we spent the entire time there.  Here are a few pictures...

Myles loved watching himself on the camera and he drummed and natives danced.

 Scooter with chickens headed for a market anyone?

 Not even sure what to say about this picture...

 Jillian was so engrossed in imaginary play in this exhibit...like I have never seen her before.

 She made food at this fire pit for at least an hour.  Love the skirt.  It was women's sized wrapped around her tiny waist twice.  She was in the zone.

 Getting more food at the market to make over an open fire.

Our day was awesome.  I miss the days at home with them so badly.  Thank goodness for today.  It was a great break from our routine...for all of us.  Today I am making a commitment to myself...my sanity...and my kids.  I will take regular vacation days to do our old "normal things" like a trip to the library, museum, out to lunch...whatever the day brings us.  Not all vacation days have to be for "vacations".  Or, maybe that is the point in itself.  Spending a fun day with my kids is the vacation.  

Still finding my way.  My balance.