I love the school holidays and never pretend any different, I like the lack of routine and that glorious feeling of ignoring the alarm clock, but more than the school holidays, I enjoy the extra-curricular activity holidays, for one precious week, I have my evenings back…
The one small flaw in my ideal half term holiday scenario, is that, as much as I would be very happy to spend the next seven days holed up with my girls all enjoying each others company either in bed or curled up in front of the fire watching movies only leaving the house to walk the dog, and in both scenarios, still in our PJ’s, my cherubs by the end of day one would be completely bored or stuck to a screen (and not the type that shows movies). Henceforth the half term activities commence, or at least I plan lots of them but then my actual week goes something like this…
Day One!
Lunch at mine for a friends birthday! For the kids that means multiple ham and cheese sandwiches, garnished with the odd celery stick and some tomatoes that’ll be ignored, with novelty crisps and a token fruit offering followed by the best cake in the world, Colin the caterpillar. For the adults, it is a variation on the beige food mixed with salad in a posh baguette as opposed to the crap 50-50 I give our children deluding myself that is the ‘healthy option’, the fancy crisps and all the remaining cake with copious amounts of tea, unless we’re all in the advantageous position of not having to drive later, in which case we’re totally embracing the lunchtime prosecco as its the holidays and a special occasion and the mid-week drinking rule does not apply on these occasions!! Lunch is followed by chucking them all in the garden for the token fresh air, whilst we crank up the heating, drink all the tea and have a series of unfinished conversations as whenever we’re getting to the good bit, we are interrupted by a tell-tale from a child, or a bum that needs wiping or a dog that needs letting in and out of the garden….we’ll eventually give up, go our separate ways and spend our evenings texting about the stuff we were meant to talk about but never did…!
Day 2!
This is the bracing outdoors day at the hideously overpriced local country estate house and farm, where you spend ALL your money on the admission fee (it includes the obligatory halloween based paper crafts and a sight of an obscure amphibian) and then try and save a bit by taking a picnic which will inevitably be consumed within the first half an hour of your arrival, you will then spend the equivalent of half your weekly budget on coffee’s throughout the day, as its hot and provides warmth for you, whilst purchasing the obligatory ice-cream for your children, despite the fact it’s pretty much mid-winter and will have to ensue the pitiful cries of them finally feeling the cold that you have had the endure for the last sodding three hours while they’ve been running round the play area, which, let’s be honest, is the only bit they were interested in, not all the enriching farm, educational stuff you so painstakingly dragged them around…
Day 3!
The token day where no plans are made but tend to end up in playdates, carefully timed and executed to ensure all 3 girls have a friend round for the exact same amount of time at the same time to minimise the bickering and protestations about something not being fair..it is also the day where I will start to try and factor in a bit of housework but then give up as I seemingly realise what a pointless task it is and decide to give up on all attempts until the girls are back at school.
Day 4!
Dreaded Halloween! So last year, under much duress we were persuaded to host a halloween party…it seemed to be somewhat more successful than I envisaged, (Max is like the proverbial child and went to town on the aesthetics!) so lo and behold it seems we’re having one again..while I mentally calculate the cost and effort of the food preparation and house decoration, Max is trying to engage live actors and buying bones from the local butchers. It will be fun carnage and I will spend all day preparing for it, 5 mins doctoring an old nurses/school uniform for me to wear, 3 mins making myself look even paler than I actually am, 4 hrs drinking medicinal gin and playing the hostess with the mostess, plying all my guests with chilli but forgetting all the potatoes in the oven to discover them next week. By midnight our house will be resemblant of glastonbury after its rained, the children will be the kind of hyped up sugar fuelled tired that renders them inexplicably emotional and I will be drinking tea and clearing up hoping our more persistent guests (they know who they are!!) get the hint and go home! We then spend a good couple of hours clearing up at the end of the night hoping it’ll make it less of a shock in the morning…
Day 5!
No time for wallowing in a hangover or properly cleaning the house as we’re off to take the girls for a sleepover at Grandpas house! This will likely involve car sickness, my favourite, and tears when we leave them even tho I know they’ll have a great time. We’ll aim to set off no later than 10am, in reality it’ll be nearer 12 as despite years of practice, it still takes hours to leave the house! That evening, given the opportunity of a childfree night, we’ll aim to go out out, spend ages getting ready, leave the house at 7, go for a pre dinner drink and then after deliberating for ages, go to the same place we always eat, after finishing our meal where we talked about the girls the whole time, we’ll both be yawning and decide to go home. We’ll be in bed, asleep by 10pm!!
Day 6!
Wake up irritatingly early despite having no children or work, collect cherubs from Daddy dearest, hoping they’ve done more in the last 24hrs than watch netflix, then head home to tackle the remnants of the party, discover someone still asleep with their head in a bucket in our shed, send them home and then get the fire going and hopefully watch Strictly! A show that we started to watch a few years ago with our darling daughters, considering it as wholesome family bonding time and a treat for them to be able to stay up late and encroach on precious ‘grown up time’, we have since realised they have very little interest in, but try and lure them back in to it as we now enjoy watching ourselves but aren’t quite at the stage where we’re ready to admit it!!
Day 7!
A day of last minute homework that they’ve all known about all week, ironing the mountainous pile of uniform that has grown in the basket that I’ve known about all week, turning the house upside down in the search for that 1 PE pump that always goes missing…never a pair!! Making packed lunches to start the new term off in an organised fashion and remonstrating about all the things I had meant to do with them over the holiday and didn’t! Recalling that one of them was making the christmas cake and deciding there’s no time like the present, so do it there and then, only getting it in the oven for bedtime and remembering that it needs to be cooked for 4 hrs. We do all the school reading before bed to make sure they haven’t forgotten how, then send them off to bed nice and early for that good night sleep, for them to then lie awake anyway until 10pm as they’re so out of the habit and probably slept in until 9 that morning. Every holiday I resolve to get back into a good sleep pattern in plenty of time for school but never quite manage it….
And then Monday comes and another precious holiday is over, I wake up feeling grumpy and sad to be going back but then after listening to them bickering over their weetabix, gaily skip them out of the house and off to school….
It's a mums life. 