Thursday, June 10, 2010

VBS

The kids and I have been at Vacation Bible School at our church all week. I'm wondering about the origin of the title...is it supposed to be a vacation for the parents or for the kids? And, if so, at what point did that stop being true? Because it is definitely not a vacation for anybody now. I have always been a morning person, and my kids are early risers, but it is still tough to have us all dressed, fed, packed for the day, and out the door by 8:00 am every morning.

And the five hours we spend at the church each day, though definitely fun and educational, are also extremely draining. Just like last year, I am working as a crew leader. A crew leader takes the 5-6 preschoolers assigned to him/her and takes them through the different activities throughout the day. The challenge is this: maintaining cooperation and decent behavior from preschoolers (whose families you may or may not know), while doing your best to make sure they have a good time. (And you're also supposed to keep them from getting hurt or lost.) Despite the challenges, the kids are all having a really good time, and they are learning a little about the Bible to boot :) And as an added bonus, my kids are BEAT by the time we get in the car to go home. Caleb hasn't even attempted to skip a nap all week!

Thankfully, I learned from last year that the trick to a good VBS week is to go grocery shopping the Sunday night before and to have very low expectations for household maintenance during the week. Even with these adjustments, I am finding myself collapsing into bed shortly after the kids go to sleep each night, but at least I'm not waking up frustrated from all of the things that I couldn't get done the day before.

1 comment:

katherine said...

I agree that VBS is no vacation--it just takes place during summer vacation which is how I think it earned its name. Ours is coming up in a week. Maybe Anna will go back to napping again. That would be a vacation for me.