March Break – Rebecca Cuneo Keenan

Toronto-centric quickie giveaway alert. See bottom of the post for details.

There is SO MUCH to do during March Break wherever you live. Toronto’s no exception. Here, these guys do event listings so much better than I would.

Yesterday I took the girls to check out the TIFF Kids digiPlaySpace at the TIFF Bell Lightbox and it was pretty cool, so I wanted to give a special shout out. I really should have taken Colum out of school for the afternoon too because it would have been right up his alley.

It’s a high-tech interactive playground, essentially, for kids ages 3 and up. (Grown ups will have fun playing too.) We got to watch ourselves control the weather with our bodies on a giant screen, chase virtual bugs around, ride a giant wild boar via green screen technology and lots more.

The digiPlaySpace is open for six weeks from March Break to the end of the TIFF Kids International Film Festival. It’s the perfect activity for your bigger kids who really don’t need to do the dinosaurs at the ROM for the 10th year in a row. (Not that I don’t love the ROM!) Here, check out the one minute trailer:

If hanging out at TIFF puts you in the mood to watch some movies, walk up to the Queen streetcar and head over to The Beach Cinemas for $5 kids movies every morning all week long. There will also be face-painting, character appearances, a charity cupcake sale and lunch specials at Boston Pizza.

Quickie giveaway! You can win 4 tickets to any March Break Movie Morning showing and a family-friendly DVD prize pack. Just check out the line up and tell me which movie you want to see the most in the comments and I’ll draw a name on Monday, March 11 at 10am. Liking the Beach Cinema’s Facebook page isn’t necessary to enter but it is a good way to keep in the loop about future specials. GTA only, duh.

Disclosure: I’m part of the Kinder® Mom program and I receive special perks as part of my affiliation with this group. The opinions on this blog are my own.

The beautiful, mild winter notwithstanding, I’m ready for spring. I’m ready for more daylight and warmer weather and hanging out at the park. Al fresco breastfeeding! Kids bouncing off playground equipment instead of the living room walls!

But first, my friends, first, we get March Break. It’s as though the universe has dictated that we must be brought to the very threshold of our breaking point — two and half months of relentless school routine in the frigid Canadian winter — before we’re granted a break. I know for many working parents March Break is a huge pain, a giant scramble for alternate child care. But I am counting the days.

We will not be taking a family vacation at the same time as every other family in North America. We will not be escaping to a cottage or even heading downtown to check out over-crowded attractions. Nope. But I also won’t be begging and pleading, ordering and insisting, wrestling and then finally crying for a three-year-old to please just put on some clothes, any clothes, so we can take her brother to school. I won’t be making lunch at 11am so we can catch the 11:45 school bus that will take my son to his 2.5 hour-long school day. I won’t be packing him a snack or drowning in a sea of kindergarten paperwork. Didn’t we just do a fundraiser yesterday?! I won’t be waking up a baby so we can pick my son up from the school bus and I (hopefully, please let it be true) won’t be walking around the neighbourhood with a purple little-girls hair elastic static clinging to the side of my head and a giant black streak from who-knows-where across my cheek because who has time to look in the mirror while hustling three kids out the door to catch the school bus.

We’ll be hanging in our pj’s, watching cartoons and snacking on Kinder Surprise eggs because I’m working as part of a campaign to remind you about how awesome those treats are. (Smooth segue, right? I know.) Seriously, though, we’re just going to hang out at home and in the neighbourhood, taking it easy. We’ll maybe do a craft and play some games. We’ll probably do some baking and head down to High Park with friends. We’ll for sure crack open one or two Kinder eggs and my kids will happily play with the cool new toys they come with while I do some laundry or something. And maybe Ed will even find the time to get something done around the house. (*cough* paint the stairs *cough*)

And after March Break is over, and the school rush is back on, at least it will be spring. Right? Please let it be spring by then.

What do you guys have planned for March Break? You can win $500 toward a family staycation at The Kinder Canada Facebook page for the month of February, so act fast. (Click the My Kinder Moments link on the left of the Facebook page.) And check out the new Kinder Surprise toys while you’re there, too. They’re really are pretty neat.