My Plan for Two Days Off School With Three Different Ages

On a school day, Caleb eats lunch at 11:40 and Lily eats at noon, and neither of them has ever had to decide that. A bell goes and they line up. On Thursday and Friday there's no bell, and the only clock in the house is me.

I taught third grade for five years, so I should be good at this, and I'm only half good at it. A classroom has a schedule on the wall and twenty-six children who've agreed to it. My kitchen has an eleven-year-old, an eight-year-old and a boy who turns three on the thirtieth and who has opinions about the color of his cup. Ben is home with me every weekday anyway, so what changes for fall break is that now everybody is.

Here's the plan I've made, on a Monday, before any of it has been tested.

What I'm fixing and what I'm leaving alone

I fixed four things, and I picked them because each one would cost me an hour if I made it up on the spot.

The first is the chore block, one hour right after breakfast on both days and before anything fun, and Caleb takes the blue-tape corner of the garage. Lily wipes the hall baseboards with a damp rag, which she has decided is a job for horse people. Ben sorts the clean socks by color and will get it wrong in a way he finds very satisfying. I'm saying it at the table Thursday so nobody hears about it at ten.

The second is the outing, of which there's only one, and it's Thursday morning at the park with the long hill, because David works from home on Thursdays and has a call or two that can't have a toddler in the background. He'll be in the front room with the door mostly shut, and the loud part of the day needs to happen somewhere that isn't there. Friday David is at the office and there's no outing at all.

The third is Thursday's dinner. Caleb cooks on Thursdays and wrote his list Sunday the way he always does, so I'm leaving it alone. A boy with dinner coming has something to point at when he's bored at two in the afternoon, and I'll be in the kitchen with him, the way I always am.

The fourth is Friday's supper, which is pizza. If the dough isn't mixed by nine it comes out of the freezer, and I've already decided that counts.

Everything else is open. Thursday after lunch is open and so is all of Friday between the chore block and the pizza. I have no idea what Lily will do with a free Friday morning, and I'd like to find out.

What last year's paper on the fridge did

Last October I wrote the whole break out hour by hour on a sheet of printer paper and taped it to the fridge. Groceries at ten, lunch at twelve, paper horses at one, a walk, a movie. Caleb was ten and Lily was seven, and Ben was almost two and had just discovered that the lobster tank at the Smith's by the freeway was the best thing in the world.

The grocery trip was supposed to take forty minutes, but we were still standing at the tank at eleven-thirty because Ben had both hands flat on the glass and wouldn't be moved, and we got home after noon, when the paper said lunch had already happened. I stood in front of that sheet at ten past twelve with a bag of frozen peas going soft in my hand, feeling behind on a day nobody had asked me to run on a clock. Lily read it out loud anyway. "It's one o'clock, we're supposed to be crafting," she said, at 12:40 with real concern, and I told her to please stop reading the fridge. I said it badly and she went and sat on the stairs.

By Friday afternoon I'd taken the paper down and folded it into the recycling.

So this year the plan I'm carrying is short, and the only thing with a time next to it is that dough at nine.

The hour I expect to go wrong is three o'clock

Mornings are fine with a chore block and an outing and everybody fed, but around three there's a hole between lunch and anybody being hungry for supper, and everyone has finished whatever they were doing and is looking around for the next thing.

In my classroom the hour after lunch recess was where everything came apart, and the cure was never a bigger activity. It was a snack. So at three on both days there's a plate on the counter, apple slices and peanut butter and whatever cheese is left, and anyone who wants to be in the kitchen is in the kitchen. I'm not planning what happens after that. Ben will eat the peanut butter off the knife if I let him.

Screens are afternoon only, after the chore block and the outing, and they go off before supper. I'm easier about screens than David is, and on a Thursday when he's in the other room with the door shut I'd rather have it written down than argue it at four.

If it rains, we go to the park anyway in boots, and the hill gets muddy and Ben considers that an improvement.

When they start in on each other by Friday

They will, because by the second afternoon the novelty of being home together has worn off and what's left is two people who know exactly where the other one is tender.

Speeches have only ever made it worse for me, and what helps is something smaller said quieter, which is why I keep going back to the verse about the soft answer:

A soft answer turneth away wrath: but grievous words stir up anger.

Proverbs 15:1

It's a line about whoever speaks next, and in my house that's usually me, standing at the counter with a knife in one hand. I've written before about not asking who started it, so I won't walk through that again. The Friday plan is that when the voices go up, I get quieter, send somebody for a drink of water and change who's standing near whom. It sounds like nothing, and it's about all I have at three-thirty on the second day.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do you do with kids of very different ages on a day off school?

Give them one thing that's together and leave the rest loose. For us the together thing is the park on Thursday, and after that I let the big two drift off and Ben stays near me. If everything has to suit all three, it ends up suiting the toddler.

Should I plan every hour of a day off?

No, I tried it. I'd fix the chores, one outing at most and dinner. Anything with a clock next to it is something you can fall behind on.

How do I handle screen time on a break?

Decide it before you're tired. For us it's afternoons only and off before supper. You may land somewhere else, and I'd still write it down on a Monday.

What if it rains the whole time?

Go anyway if you can, in boots. If you really can't, move the outing into the garage and let the big two push the chore block a little longer than an hour. I'd still keep the snack at three.

The oven timer's going for a pan of squash (forty minutes) and I'm already sure I'll forget to stir it at twenty.

with love, Melissa