How To Enjoy Spring Break

A Life360 screen shot to show you I was at our Nation’s Capitol last week advocating for rare disease week!

Over Spring Break we’re headed to Savannah, GA. We found a cute apartment less than a mile from the Riverfront. It will be nice to disconnect for real life, together. Like you I’m sure, during the week we’re running in a million directions. We’re planning to exhale, museum visits, ghost tours, bus tours, bike riding and just being together for some time without the stress of homework and work. We want to be conscious of our time to focus on our family and each other and having a good time.

• Limiting work and screen time. We’ll have to check-in with work, but we’re going to limit it. I won’t have to as much as my husband, but we can and we will not let the phone and work control us.
• Do something each kid wants to do each day. I’m making a list of a couple of dozen things we can do as options. I want to give the kids choices of what we do and we want to let each of them pick something each day. I want to slow down the pace and not do too much.
• Give some down time, too. Like everyone else, we’re overwhelmed with our schedules some days. The kids are under a lot of pressure with their school work, therapies, medical appointments, lab work and activities. They don’t have much down time and I want them to have some on vacation.
• Sleep in. Luckily we have teenagers and we get to sleep in a little bit. I don’t want to sleep the day away, but not getting up at 5:45 (yes, we do) will be luxury.
• We’re going to get moving. Together. I want us to walk and bike a lot. I expect some complaints the first day but I’m sure that will fade away because of the fun!
• Relax and not take things too seriously. Because of the kids’ intense life due to their medical/educational issues, life can get serious, quick. We ask a lot of them in the care of their conditions. As parents, I promise we’re going to chill out a bit. If they don’t want to shower? Whatever. Stay up late? Fine, keep it down so I can sleep. Want to wear all black with thick black eyeliner and red lips? Do it. We’re on vacation.

Wise words from my daughter.

Because we have teenagers who can walk themselves a block to a store and have different interests, we might be separated a lot. I love that we can check-in with each other on the Life360 app easily as a tool to communicate. Because I think we (okay, ME!) have to resist the urge to hover, I guess it allows us to be hands off and the kids to know we’re not freaking out about where they are. We all use it, not just us parents. We can send group messages, use a shared To Do list (although I haven’t used it for chores yet) and let each other know when we’ve arrived somewhere.