My house was always full during summer breaks.
Each of my nieces and nephews would visit because I was the cool aunt and they all wanted to get away from their parents.
My sisters and brothers were glad for the brak, especially because they knew how responsible I was. My two kids loved that they could play with their cousins whenever they wanted. I always took a three week break just to entertain the kids and have fun with them. This one summer holiday, though, things were a bit tight. My boss refused to give me an entire three week break since he wanted me to work on a file of new investors. I was the only one capable of handling the file. The kids were disappointed as this meant they would have to spend most of the time indoors. My husband was also unavailable and all I could do was get a babysitter to watch them during the day until I got home from the office. I had always assumed that everyone could manage teens but how wrong I was. I had three babysitters quitting in a span of a week. The complaint was that they could not manage 7 teens at the same time. It was just too demanding. I sat down with the kids the next day after the last babysitter quit to find out what the issue was. It turns out that they all wanted to control the HVAC system setting. Since they all had different preferred levels of coldess, they never seem to agree on one. And when they were not on the same page, they would get on each other’s nerves, and eventually disturb the sitter. I decided to take charge of the situation. I knew that idleness was also part of the issue. We went out and bought several board games. I also asked the HVAC technician to install a smart thermostat that could regulate while at work. I brought in a new sitter who stayed the whole holiday as the kids settled down finally.