Spring Break

The flowers are blooming, grass is growing, temperatures are rising.  All of which can only mean one thing -it's time for SPRING BREAK!


Now, as an adult, this yearly milestone shouldn't mean that much to me.  It's not like I'm heading to the Florida beaches, cruising the Caribbean Sea, or taking a tour of Europe.  That's all stuff for college kids, which I haven't been for a number of years now.  But, as a teacher, I've been looking forward to this event since the beginning of March.


Due to the unseasonably warm and snowless winter we had this year, it's felt like spring for about six weeks in this part of the world.  My students reacted to the warm weather with early, but not unexpected spring fever.  All of a sudden, long-time friends weren't getting along, puppy love was blooming and/or falling apart, and classroom behavior in general was deteriorating.  We had all been trapped in the classroom together for over seven months and desperately needed a break from each other.

Thank heavens for spring break!  My school system has been generous for the last two years and given us the whole week before Easter, plus the Monday following Easter.  I have ten days without ten year olds!  Yippee!

They are going to be a very busy ten days, too.  Friday night, straight after school let out, there was the Meet The Parents dinner extravaganza.  Saturday afternoon, there was a trip to the circus with a certain redhaired nephew named Squirt.  Sunday afternoon, my honey got to meet the rest of my family, including Squirt. 

A hockey fight so rough that he ripped the other guy's head off.

Squirt was really shy around the new red-headed stranger in our midst at first, but eventually got into a rough housing hockey fight with my honey, inspired by the epic hockey fight we watched on TV at the Flyers-Penguins game. (Even the coaches got thrown out of that game for fighting!)  My beloved pup, Roxy, showed that her initial reaction to my honey was no fluke, as she strolled right up to him to show him her bone, sat on his feet, and proceeded to let him know that she would like her ears, her belly, and her rump rubbed.  My own dog ignored me in favor of my honey.  I don't know if I should be happy or upset by this.  I'm leaning towards happy - my baby likes my baby.  In fact, at dinner when I would say "Come here, baby!" to the dog, both of them would look up.  It was very funny.

My honey gained additional Mom approval for his dealings with the dog and the Squirt.  My brother also threw his support our way, telling my mom later that my honey was going to fit right in and that it would be good to have another smart@$$ at the dinner table.  My silent sister-in-law apparently weighed in to a friend of the family that she thought my honey was cute.  Clean sweep!  He won them all over.

But, I digress.  This started out as a blog about my spring break and seems to have taken a turn into boyfriend black-out territory, my apologies!  The rest of my days have been filling up fast.  Yesterday, I had morning playtime at Rollie Pollie's with two of my honorary nephews and lunch with my college roommate (They were a package deal as the boys are her sons.).  My morning with toddlers was immediately followed by an afternoon trip across the bridge with my friend, Mrs. Mynd, to be her moral support while she got a tattoo.  She hardly even flinched during the tattoo, so I would classify it more as "along for the ride" than actual moral support.  That was immediately followed by watching hockey on my couch with my honey.  His team lost, but still isn't out of the running for the playoffs yet.  This spring break thing is exhausting work.  There's so much to do!

Today, I'm having lunch with my honey and meeting his work friends.  The rest of the week has... 1) lunch with my BFF, 2) a meet and greet dinner with my honey's best friend, 3) a hockey game (Of course, no week is complete without one now.), 4) painting my mom's downstairs bathroom, 5) church followed by dinner at Red Lobster with the family and my honey on Good Friday, 6) a Saturday trip to the ball park for some major league baseball with my honey, and 7) Easter dinner with my big (both tall and numerous) extended family.

Number seven might get tricky as my honey's mom would like my attendance at her Easter dinner and my mother would like my honey's attendance at her Easter dinner.  We may both hate spiral sliced hams by Monday morning if we make it through both dinners.  Plus, meeting my extended family including my retired drill sargeant grandfather may lead to some indigestion for my honey, I'm sure.  By the time this is over, I'm going to need a holiday to recover from my spring break.

Wish me luck keeping all these balls up in the air!
I'm just going to keep saying,
"Never.. take... your eyes... off... the ball."