We live just two miles away from a high school that has been closed for one week due to Swine Flu. Two schools elementary age children have become infected in the last day — both living in the same city as my son’s preschool. More schools in California are considering closing as a precaution. And it leaves me wondering… Where are all these kids gonna go during the day?

If the point of the school closure is to isolate children in hopes of keeping the outbreak to a minimum, you can’t simply just put your kid in an alternate childcare. Sure they may seem fine today. But with a waiting period of 7 days, a normal kid today can be a sick kid next Tuesday.

I feel like I’m one of the lucky ones.  If my son’s school were to close for a period of time, I can work from home 100%, have a supportive boss, and lots of family near-by that would be able to step in if needed. 

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I’m grateful for my job, especially in this economy.

I’m grateful for the income, for a supportive boss, and for all of the opportunities that working full time provides for myself and my family.

But…

This week I have family in from out of town.  My dad, stepmom, favorite aunt and only sister are taking advantage of super cheap airfare deals and spending Monday to Thursday in sunny Florida.

Monday to Thursday, of course, I work a full time job.

Now, we all knew when the flights were booked that my husband and I would be working.  We accepted the fact that, while it wouldn’t be the ideal situation, getting to spend evenings together (and days with the kids) was still better than nothing.  We agreed to make the most of it and I’m determined to relish the time I have with them instead of focusing on the time I don’t.

But…

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Ever since I moved from a small town in Iowa to the Orlando, Florida area, I have come to hate watching the news.  It seems like every day there is a new story about horrible things happening to innocent people.

The worst are the stories about crimes against children.  As a mother, I have an instant need to find my babies and wrap my arms around them, keeping them safe from anything that would hurt them.

I was reminded of this feeling earlier this week when I was reading the Orlando Sentinel’s Moms At Work blog about a little girl who was raped and murdered, allegedly by her Sunday school teacher.  As Lisa pointed out, hearing about strangers who hurt children is terrifying.  But reading the story of Sandra Cantu, an 8-year old thought to have been victimized by her best friend’s mother, is beyond unthinkable.  This isn’t a random stranger being accused of heinous crimes.  This is a woman that the little girl - and undoubtedly her parents - trusted.

It begs the question, who do you trust with your kids?

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I’m planning our summer vacation.  It’s nothing fancy – a trip to the South to see my Grandmother.  One week of hanging out in extreme humidity, eating her home-grown tomatoes, and drinking glass after glass of sweet tea.  To say I’m looking forward to it is an understatement.

Only one problem: my spouse can’t get the time off.  It’s not month-end close or end of year craziness.  It’s not that he doesn’t have the time off.  It’s because at his company people just don’t take vacation.  Like ever. At his company, it’s acceptable to take a day here or a long weekend there.  But an entire week off?  Practically unheard of.

My spouse isn’t alone.  In a study by Orbitz, the online travel company, one-third of respondents said they took five or fewer days of vacation in the past year. One in four said they felt their bosses did not encourage them to take vacations, and one in three said they stayed connected with their office via phone or computer while on holiday.

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I remember learning about “Arsenic Hour” when I first had my babies.  Every day, at about 4 in the afternoon, the baby would get fussy.  The hours from 4pm to 6pm were filled with whining and crying and rocking and juggling and all around chaos for everyone in the family.

I don’t have babies anymore, but I still dread the beginning of the end of the day.

Now the crabbiness sets in about 5 or 5:30.  Ironically, that’s when I get off work so you’d think I’d be ecstatic.  But it doesn’t take me long to switch from work mode to prep mode and my mind is filled with the ever evolving list of things that need to be done.

Child care pick ups, dinner, homework, baths, dishes, maybe some laundry.

And all before the kids have to be tucked into bed.

I notice my husband fading fast at this time of the night, too.  He’s tired from working and trying to get dinner on the table and lunches packed for the next day.  And all the while I can see him stealing glances at the couch, counting down the minutes when he can flop.

The unfortunate thing is that these are our prime family hours.  With school, day care and two working parents, the daily time we have with all of us together is after work and before bed.  I hate that we’re wishing those hours away.  But our biorhythms seem to be working against us.

Here is where an expert would offer some advice, I suppose.  Maybe insert a list of ideas for getting through the afternoon slump.  But I haven’t got a clue.

Do you?

How do you perk up in the late afternoon and early evenings?

I have come to hate Columbus Day.

And President’s Day.

And teacher “work” days.

I don’t work in a bank or a post office, so all these days mean to me is what the heck am I going to do for child care for my school aged child?

While my youngest child is in a daycare that thankfully only closes on major holidays (we’re talking Christmas and Thanksgiving), I have a son at that difficult age where he’s normally in school full time, but not quite old enough to be left home alone all day if school is closed.

With the mother of inconvenient short term school breaks coming up - spring break - I’m wondering what other working parents do for child care in these situations?

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I had to take a morning off this week to register my son for Kindergarten.  A month ago, I had to take an afternoon off to get the last of the immunizations required to register him for Kindergarten.  Two months ago I had to wake up at 5am to stand in line to get an appointment to register him for Kindergarten.  Plus I spent a few more hours filling out form after form, getting original copies of all our bills for proof of residency, and checking then re-checking we had everything we needed to register him for local public school.

If Kindergarten is this complicated, then I’m never gonna survive college applications.
The last two months have been so stressful in our house.  I’ve got a pretty good grasp on our day-to-day operations.  As long as there isn’t any emergency or last-minute schedule change, I tend to do pretty good at balancing what I’m balancing.  But the amount of work that went into just getting ready to register my son for school nearly put me over the edge.

How I am ever going to make it through the school-age years working full-time?

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It seems like every woman I know is a self proclaimed clean freak.  Every woman, that is, but me.

I hate cleaning.  I don’t like picking up, I can’t stand folding laundry, and vaccuuming has got to be the most boring activity ever invented.  There is nothing cathartic about cleaning for me.

“Oh, I don’t like cleaning either,” my friends will tell me, “but it just drives me crazy when it’s not done.  You know how it is.”

Actually, I don’t.

You know what drives me crazy?  A brown belt with black shoes.  Socks with sandals.  Bad customer service.  A poorly written sales letter.  That crap drives me crazy.  A pile of unfolded laundry?  I can block that out with an episode of Grey’s Anatomy.

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