Vacations-to love or not to love!!

‘Yippee! Vacations are over!”

My joy knew no bound as I remembered that my kids’ school were re-opening the next day after a month long summer break. It was difficult for me to contain my excitement and the mere thought of three peaceful, quiet, completely-at-my-disposal hours lifted my spirits the way even girl’s best friend, i.e., diamonds couldn’t have done at the time.  After all, I had managed to walk through FORTY DAYS of constant fights, bickering, crying, calls for help for easiest possible tasks, with my sanity intact and hair on my head in place!!

It was time for celebration and I could not help singing my la-la-la’s as my children and husband looked at me with suspicion wondering whether the vacations had finally taken their toll on my mind. I sobered down immediately. I couldn’t give my husband the satisfaction of that amused look.

The day could not have been better. In fact, I did not even mind all the toys strewn over the house or crumbs of food forming a pattern (sometimes floral or geometrical or abstract) on the dining–table and the floor. To be honest, I felt a little embarrassed too, at the thought of being happy rather than feeling sad at how my poor children will have to go to school in this immense heat which drains one out in no time while I will enjoy the air-conditioned cool of my house. But I banished the thought from my mind. I sailed through the day planning how to spend those three much-awaited hours next day.

 And voila, night it was finally. I laid out the uniforms, polished the school shoes, made preparations for the lunch box and came to bed.

And as I picked up my cell-phone for turning on the alarm for the next morning, it struck me like a lightning bolt. Break of the dawn, that is when I will have to get up from next day onwards till the end of the session, well almost, sparing the Sundays and a few holidays.

All of a sudden I started wishing for the vacations to be extended. Then I realized how important vacations were for my beauty sleep.

  OH, that extra hour of sleep in the morning, it was so sweet!!

 It was all over now, a thing of the past until next year. I was already missing the forty days. The same forty days, which I had been cribbing about the entire day. The forty days which did not require me to get myself active as soon as I opened my eyes, or rush the half-sleepy children through the morning routine or wait at the door for the school transport telling my crying child the benefits of going to school , all the while.

I guess this is what vacations are about. Sometimes you love them, sometimes you hate them. You cannot do without them. Once you get them, you want to be done with them. Vacations....until next year!!!