Spring Breakdown

This blog post could also be entitled, "How To Survive Spring Break."

Husband Steve was trying, and these are his words, "not to kill the children" during the five long days that mark the annual rites of spring, otherwise known as "teachers get to soak up some oxygen before the final push to the end of the school year."

For parents, it's not a vacation. It's not a "break." It's a time when you have to plot, plan, schedule ... find something, anything, for the kids to do.

Steve, a work-from-home dad, had plenty of jobs on his plate but decided, for the sake of his own sanity, to surrender to the "break." His idea was simple, brilliant ... and probably one of the best gifts a parent could give a child: He gave them the gift of time. He called it Choose Your Own Adventure Day.

"I sat them down on the sofa and said, 'I'm yours today.' It was interesting because none of us knew where it was going to lead. We had this giant playground and did whatever we wanted in the city, like Grand Theft Auto but with more ice cream and less thuggery. You forget that you live in one big sandbox. You forget that the city can be like that. 

The rules were simple: Dad came up with the choices, and the kids took turns deciding which thing to do or direction to take. It was cool, Steve says, because the day and their destiny were in their hands – and they took ownership of it.

Choose Your Own Adventure #1: USA Doughnut or Krispy Kreme?

Kids: Krispy Kreme.

While we were there, a mom came in with her kid, who immediately came over and watched the machine. She told him, 'Come on! We don't have all day!' But we looked at teach other and thought, 'We do have all day!' All day to watch the machine make doughnuts. All day to sit and stare out the window. The kid lingered, and the mom eventually dragged him away. It reminded me how scheduled we can be. Kids don't know how to react when you ask them, 'Okay, what's next?'

Choose Your Own Adventure #2: Dodger Game or Explore?

Kids: Keep exploring. Steve opted for a Target exploration, knowing they all needed new shades for their adventure.

Choose Your Own Adventure #3: Left or Right?

Kids: Both. Actually left then left then straight then right then left, -- well you get the picture.

They arrived at Norton Sales, a surplus store for rocket parts (really!), hydraulics, and other gear and gadgety things. Steve had scoped this one out ahead of time but the kids, in control of their own destinies, were quite convinced they had stumbled upon an amazing little gem in the Valley on their own. This place was a trove of rocket and missile parts and control panels and gear from the early Space Age, which tickled a nostalgia bone for Steve and ignited both kids' sense of wonder. These weren't hidden behind museum glass; they could touch and poke at whatever they wanted. Plus, there was a cat.

The cat crawled out from under a liquid oxygen fuel tank and demanded some scritching.They both acted like they'd never seen a cat before.

While the kids were fascinated with the cat, Steve followed the owner down a rabbit hole of geekdom, like a time machine that returned Steve to his 12-year-old self.

 

Choose Your Own Adventure #4: Lunch With Mom or Spankings From an Ogre?

Kids: Uhm, they chose hot dog with Mom.

Steve wanted to have lunch with me. So he Googled "hot dogs" and found the Hound Dog Hot Dog Shop in Sun Valley. Slow service but great dogs.

Choose Your Own Adventure #5: Go to the Park or Go Metro?

Kids: The train!

We didn't really have a destination but Vermont/Sunset sounded good, mostly because when they said it over the loudspeaker, Kate thought they said, 'Marmoset Station.' They also got to choose elevator or stairs, and they chose the stairs sometimes.

Choose Your Own Adventure #6: North or South?

Kids: Jack set the compass on 'north,' and learned an important navigation skill.

It was kind of cool to have the compass on the train, because you never really know where you are underground. We stopped at Maya on Hollywood, a shop filled with carvings and beads.

They really wanted to buy me a $375 wooden carved chair that looks like a hand. I'm almost sorry they didn't. Almost.

Choose Your Own Adventure #7: Art or Books?

Kids: Art.

So off to Steve's other geekish outpost, Wacko on Hollywood. The kids were starting to wear down at this point, but Jack got a skeleton pen, which bolstered him a bit. Plus, the kids got to stare at weird images at the shop's La Luz de Jesus Gallery (see Mark Gleason "Mannerism" here).

Choose Your Own Adventure #8: Pirates or Bunnies?

Kids: Bunnies. It's Easter week, after all. Jack just wanted a picture with the bunnies and weird bunny suits, which took a backseat to the carved pirate.

They had these full-size creepy Easter Bunny suits in a store window along Hollywood Blvd. I tried to move the kids along, but Jack was drawn to the display.

Choose Your Own Adventure #9: Ice Cream or Ice Cream?

Because why even waste time coming up with another choice?

Choose Your Own Adventure #10: Know when to flip straight to the ending

The choice was sculpure or library, but the kids were pretty worn out and petitioned to make a third choice: take the train back home.

A Baby's Baby

My niece just had a baby. How strange it is to say it. Or read it. Or type it.

The two of us are just three years apart, so I still see her as my little playmate who was always a key player in our family picture, whether we were celebrating New Year's by dressing up in my mom's fancy dresses or playing with dolls for hours on end.

And that makes my sister a grandmother. Again, looks weird to my eye, but life slides us into these new roles as easily as we slip on a sweater on a cool, spring day. One minute my big sis is taking me to the park to play with her daughter and the next time I look up, she's holding her daughter's baby.

And where does that leave my mom? As a great-grandmother, the strangest of all titles for this terminally energetic, youthful and sharp-witted woman. I still – and always will – see the same woman I remember from my gradeschool days – hair nicely coiffed, bright-red fingernails, dressed impeccably for her trim frame. To this day I have more gray hair than she does, a curse she no doubt bestowed upon me for the trouble I gave her as a teenager.

Her vanity is endearing – her three grandchildren were forbidden to call her "Grandma," a title she equated with little old ladies clustered in knitting circles. To my niece, she was always "Mom." To my two kids, she's "Ema."

I can't wait to see what baby Madison will call her.