Last week was fall break for lots of schools. My schedule is not normally dictated by the school calendar, but I went to the beach to meet some family who were taking advantage of their children’s fall break. I never had a full week for fall break when I was in school, but it would have allowed for trips like this one so I wish we had.

Work continued in a more-or-less normal fashion, albeit with a few zoom-bombing interruptions from little ones who just wanted me to finish whatever meeting was ongoing in order to get back to spending time with them. During more prolonged bouts of work, I stayed behind while everyone else went to the beach or to go shopping. These periods were either in the late morning or early afternoon so I was able to eat almost every meal with others and was able to go to the park with the older kids to talk to them while they were on the swings. I also didn’t have to miss any of the trips to get ice cream that I enjoyed almost as much as the children did.

It was impossible to get any attention from the youngest one where mom or mamaw was around. And even if they weren’t it still wasn’t easy as he grabbed whatever screen was available and made his way to watch one of several children’s programs I hadn’t seen before last week.

The best part of the week was being around little ones for whom work from adults is just a temporary distraction from the serious activity of having fun with whatever game they are then playing. It was such a refreshing environment after what has been, with the exception of the previous week in Las Vegas, a slower period of work that has brought a few frustrations. Well, at least it was refreshing while no one was throwing a fit because they wanted to watch Bluey or play a game on an iPad. I was also able to commission some new watercolors for my refrigerator, one a rainbow and the other an apple tree. The exact subjects I would have chosen? Probably not, but I still see them a few times a day now and get to think about the time I get to spend with my favorite little people.