Spring Break (We’re going streaking)!

“Is it still spring break Dada?” asks the four year old at my bedside.

“Yes it is son,” I answer into the pre-dawn gloom, then add without hope of success, “so you should go back to bed and rest up.”

“Ohhhh yeaaaaaah!” he cheers, then launches into a pajama-clad spring break dance. The choreography is easy to recognize, even in the dark, punctuated as it is with arm swings, wild kicks, squats, leaps and Haka style chest slaps. That I’ve seen it every morning for a week helps too.

No trust fund frat boy in history has ever been more excited about spring break than my son is this year. His mother and I aren’t quite as thrilled. From our perspective, preschool spring break is more or less indistinguishable from a week without childcare. Cabo San Lucas it ain’t.

That’s not to say the situation is entirely without advantages. Sure, I’ve got work to do, but someone’s got to keep an eye on the kiddo, right? And since I’ll be away from my assignments anyway…

“Alright bud, that’s enough,” I say rubbing the sleep from my eyes. “You know what I was thinking we might do today?”

“Go fishing,” he answers with nonchalant certainty.

“Yeah… How’d you guess?”

“Cause you always say that Dada,” he tells me, as though trying to explain it to a particularly dense three-year old.

“Right. Fair enough. So what do you say?”

“Good.”

“Good?”

“Yeah. But let’s bring lots of snacks… and I get to net ALL the fish.”

“Deal,” I agree.

It’s hard to imagine now, but I’m sure his interests will shift to hot bodies, cold beer and exotic locales before I even realize what happened. I just hope that when the time comes, he doesn’t forget the spring breaks he spent chasing trout and cookies in the Wyoming wind.

I know I won’t.