Who Invented Spring Break?

Spring Break is over!

Do you all hear the chorus of angels singing "Allelujah!"? I do. I mean, really. What were the school administrators thinking when they put Spring Break at the end of March, when the weather here in northern Illinois is likely to be really crappy, thus forcing the kids to be inside and completely nuts with pent up energy? Today is the first day in over a week where I've actually been able to sit down in a house devoid of any noise whatsoever. Pure bliss.

I remember those days when my own Spring Breaks were ripe with possibilities. I never did the Fort Lauderdale college-girls-go-wild thing. Closest I ever got was junior year, when my roommate and I loaded up my blue Ford Escort and trekked some twenty-hours to stay with my grandma in Tampa. We came back with some pretty wicked sunburn/tan lines but not really any stories we couldn't share with our parents. I wasn't what you'd call a wild child.

My husband, on the other hand, fondly recalls his senior year in high school, when he and a handful of buddies piled into a conversion van and headed south. They didn't have any hotel reservations or any idea of what they were going to do with themselves once they got there. What blows my mind is that his parents not only let him go, his mother helped him make his fake ID. If you could meet my mother-in-law today, you'd know that he must have put some kind of voodoo curse on her, because I have no doubt she'd vehemently deny any such contributions to the delinquency of a minor.

Then again, my MIL has a gloriously selective memory when it comes to my husband's growing up years. Granted, he was a fairly good kid, never once calling from jail to ask for bail money. Even so, he did his fair share of partying. But to hear the MIL tell it, her golden boy spent all of his free time with his neat bunch of friends who were all wonderful boys who wouldn't dream of causing any trouble. He had her so snowed.

But, to her defense, I can kind of understand how it might happen. My own little golden boy is about to turn six years old, and he is a handful. Problem is, he's also very cute and very charming. I say this knowing that I'm biased to the extreme as his mother, but I think I'm being fairly objective when I claim that my son does have a way of cranking it up a notch when necessary in order to get himself off the hook. He just gives me a grin or a hug and all is forgiven. I have a feeling he'll get away with a lot of antics at school because he's just too good-natured to be mad at. He's a charmer, and he knows it.

Anyway, Spring Break is over, and I'm back to the normal. But know what puts me in a cold sweat? When my daughter points out that it's only a short 9 weeks away from Summer Vacation.

Anyone know where I can get a cheap prescription for Valium?