Break...

We're at the end of the 2 week Easter holidays. I haven't had chance to blog at all, I have a draft post named "Wanting a break" which I wrote at the start of the holidays. Now I didn't get the "break" I was looking for, but in retrospect I feel better than I did 2 weeks ago. My ideal break would be having someone take care of the kids for a couple days so I can completely relax and just do stuff that I want to do.
For me.
In reality we've had a very chilled couple of weeks, mainly spent with Grandparents, which we're very lucky to have 2 sets of, and within a couple hours of our home. I had a little break from the cooking and cleaning which was nice and I got to work one day. For me this is a break, I get to go into the adult world and talk about adult things, with no distractions from the kids, Bliss!

Now I had some grand plans of getting lots of lessons planned in advance and typing up all my training notes, organising my folders etc. I also had plans of cleaning our windows, washing the chair covers and cushion covers...NONE of that got done! (Just re-read this part and none of that sounds like fun, but it's stuff I've been wanting to do for a long time and it just keeps getting put on the back burner). Another thing I thought I would do is spend time teaching Laila to read, hmm. That didn't happen either, maybe in summer...

Anyone who has or remembers having a 2yr old and a 4yr old should be able to sympathise! You have to put your own to do list on hold. Even the evenings were taken up, spent trying to get Max to sleep. We've been through weeks and weeks of hard nights with Max's teething, this has just settled down in the last week since the evil tooth (note singular) came through. We have 3 more of these horrendous back molars to come yet. We had the same with Laila, but if I remember rightly the top two came through easier than the bottom two.

We managed to get a couple of outings to the beach and the parks and a nice trip to the local marine aquarium which they loved. But otherwise it was very low key, mainly due to the rubbish weather we've had, rain, wind, hail, rain, wind, hail. I guarantee the weather will improve as soon as school starts again!

We've had some behavioural issues, and I was determined to work on these while I was providing 100% of the childcare. Namely on the 4 yr old, the 2 yr old is just normal terrible twos behaviour, I'm more worried about what the 4yr old is capable of doing. I think I may have found the reason for it and how to deal with it, but I'm leaving all of that for another post.

What I have learned to appreciate about school holidays though, is the lazy mornings. Not a lie-in as such, as my kids never sleep late. But a break from the rushed morning routine of getting everyone ready and out the house by 8.30am! I don't actually know how we're going to cope tomorrow morning! I also used the little bits of the evenings I had left to chat to hubby and cuddle up watching DVD's instead of working hunched over the computer and my books, so this was also a welcome break!

Oh and I forgot to even mention Easter. We had the Easter Bunny and Les Cloches come and leave Eggs in the garden for the kids to find. It's taken 2 weeks, but I think they've nearly all been eaten now thank goodness!

We do have something very exciting to look forward to, in just 2 weeks we're going on holiday! Nowhere very far or overly exciting. But for the kids to stay in a mobile home and go swimming everyday will be a big deal! Now lets just hope that weather starts to improve, soon!