Spring break officially begins just a few hours from now. That means for the next 10 days, my two children will be invading my work space, my daytime haven of solitude, my “me” time. Truth is, I couldn’t be happier.

Go ahead, say I’m crazy. You wouldn’t be the first. I know plenty of moms who cherish those hours alone during the week, and I get it. They love the quiet, they savor the freedom. They relish in the downtime from the insanity of their daily lives.

Not me. I was the mom who bawled her eyes out the first time she dropped her 3-year-old son off at preschool. I was the mom who sobbed for hours when he got on the bus for his first trip to kindergarten. And today, when my almost 13-year-old not-so-little boy heads off to the bus stop by himself, I am the mom who aches just a little each time he steps out the door.

I’m sure this makes me sound clingy, borderline neurotic and in need of my own life. To be honest, it’s not like I spend the entire day pining away for my long-lost little ones. I work. I do housework. I run errands. I do all the things other moms do.

But every so often, as I sit at my desk in my quiet house, with my sleeping Yorkie curled up in my lap, I crave the sound of my children’s voices, their laughter, their movements throughout the house. And I recognize, painfully, that someday they will be gone for good, off living their own lives and raising their own kids. When that day comes, our house will be eternally quiet.

So as they constantly interrupt my train of thought and add extra hours to my workdays for the next week and a half, I will remind myself to savor their company. I will try to tolerate the arguing. I will attempt to overlook the door slamming. I will make every effort to embrace the chaos because I know someday I will miss it madly.