Spring Break at Home

The big question from the kids this year was, "Where are we going for Spring Break?" It seems that most of their friends are going cool places or doing big things. Reports from the kids about their friends' spring break plans include:

Spending the week at Disney

A Disney cruise

Florida Keys trip

New York City

Atlanta

Those things are not possible for our family. First of all, trips with a family our size are very expensive. Second, my due date is one month from today!!! I'm not going anywhere far from my doctor. Also, it is just not fun to travel at 36 weeks pregnant! Third, Matt is going to be taking time off from work when Baby arrives. There's no point in taking time off now.

Even though we've never done Spring Break travel before, there were some very disappointed kiddos in our house when we told them we were staying home. Somehow, they had all worked it out in their heads that we were doing the things their friends are doing. Huh. So I have devised some plans to help make our stay-at-home break lots of fun. Here are some of the things we'll be doing (or have already done).

• Paint big brother/big sister t-shirts to wear to the hospital when they meet Baby Sister
• Make new playdough
• Paint pictures
• Glamour shot photo shoots in our yard (which means fancy hair and make-up for the girls)
• A new puzzle
• LOTS of outside playtime
• Rent movies 
• Watch movies while eating popcorn
• Theater movie dates with Mommy for Piper and Sunny (redeeming gift cards they got for their birthdays)
• Bake cookies
• A visit to the neurologist for Pepper (Thursday) and getting a wart removed for Pepper (Wednesday)
• Free play time at a local gymnastics place with all our friends (Friday)
• Sleepover at a friend's house for Snapper
• Picnic lunch at the park with Piper's BFF
• Buy the Frozen dvd and watch it at least three times
• READ!
• Have each kid help with meal prep on a different day (they all love to cook)
• Make art pieces to mail to cousins
• Dinner and pedicures for me with my friend Tracie
• Make new hair bows 
• Snuggle and tickle and enjoy each other

When we made the list, they felt a lot better. I think they were picturing a week filled with nothing but unscheduled time. A week like that is actually threatening to my kids with trauma histories, because structure equals safety to them. Unstructured time feels like life is out of control. Having a list of what we can do each day helps them feel more secure. It promises to be a fun week!