Holidays

The first year of my 'daycare career' I didn't take any holidays. The children attending my daycare were still new and I was accumulating my 'family base', my income level was low and fluctuated so much that I didn't dare afford the luxury of taking a day off.

The second year of this new career is somewhat of a blur. I'd have to drag out my calendar for that year but I think we may have just made the best of long weekends during that time ... or at best, I may have taken time off but worked the Saturdays at the credit union during my holidays.

Since then, I learned that money or not ... I need to take a step away from a life of tending children. I need that two weeks of uninterrupted down time. I have learned to book those Saturdays off from the credit union and step away from 'life as I know it'.

Tending children is a busy task. No matter how many or how few that are here in a day, I have schedules to follow, meals to make, overseeing to do, finding ways to keep active, diapers to change (it seems my days are ruled by 'bathrooming' of one sort or another all day). The decision to go to the park means having everyone go to the bathroom first, then the sun screening ... last week it took us 1/2 an hour to get ready to go to the park.

In a life that is dictated by everyone else's schedules, it is a real treat to have these holidays where I can decide on a whim to do something or go someplace. And we can be out the door in minutes (a few ... not 30).

In a life where I am running and doing and going and feeding a varying amount of children, it is nice to only worry about running, doing, going and feeding only myself and my 10 year old.

In a life where I must be ''on'' and at my best for 10 hours out of my day, it is just nice to be ''off".

It is funny how money works. The more I used to obsess about it, the more it ruled me and the more I needed. When I decided that holidays were a necessity to my sanity, I had the mantra "It will all work out in the end" going through my mind. We had some lean summers. But I've learned to budget (I save 10% of my daycare income most of the year to afford this time off) and make this holiday-time a 'No Stress Zone'. The money part does work out in the end (it does work out better when you save a little all year long though).

I haven't reached the point where I feel like screaming from the rooftops "I need a holiday!!" for several years now. I think it is in the 'knowing' that I have carved out this time for myself to recharge my batteries that I don't feel the quiet desperation that I used to feel.

No matter what a person does, you need a break. Any responsibility that takes up a vast portion of your waking day feels less onerous when you know you can step away from it all.

A holiday is time to rest, relax and recharge. In the world of daycare, it feels like a necessity. At least to me ...