As a working mother, holidays especially summer vacation is a living nightmare. There are kids at home waiting to be entertained. I feel urban kids (or maybe my kids) have not learnt to take care of themselves. The dependence is often exhausting. Plus now the loud sibling fights have started.
With an all week travelling husband, the week day responsibility falls on me. My mom is a great support but gets exhausted after a while.
2014 was a really long summer break. The kids school shut down (never to open again) and the new school did not advance their schedule (tall expectations!) . This meant 3 months kids at home.
There are so many summer camp on offer this year.
I used the following criteria to make the decision -
1. In the summer camp, they learn something away from the regular school program.
2. They are with caring and compassionate teachers.
3. The venue is not far away from home
4. The number of kids in the batch don't exceed 10
5. Both kids must go to the same place (this was assigned the heaviest weight age)
I shortlisted and the kids had the final say. They went to a fun science class and an interesting theme based book reading class. Both the camps were for a short duration and not too many hours in the day. The kids were back home for lunch and got enough rest indoors
The new thing i tried this time was to share the responsibility of the kids (read: burden) with my friend (Shobha) for a few weeks. We sent the kids to the same summer camp and car pooled. We synced our calendars and supported each others. It was a win win. The kids had company and we managed without feeling overwhelmed.
I realize based on this experiment, how important it is for working mothers to seek support from the clan of other women.
The most fun parts of the summer vacation for me was -
1. Eating ice cream
2. No morning rush
3. Swimming
4. Lots of sun shine
Until the next holiday - have fun
