School's Back!

I think it’s safe to say that parents and caregivers across the nation will be rejoicing the re-opening of the school gates this week.

Perhaps some will be bidding farewell with a twinge of sadness, but ultimately I’m willing to guess there was a collective sigh of relief.

I won’t go on too much more about how I’ve been driven round the bend these holidays trying to work from home with the kids tearing around. It reached a point where, on the last day, I looked around at the carnage – discarded chip packets on the floor, felt pens lieing around with their lids off (you get the picture) – and realised, by constantly picking up after them, I’d brought up a bunch of sloths who would not make their future spouses happy with this lazy carry-on.

“Do you think we live in a rubbish dump? Why would you just drop your rubbish?!” I ranted.

“Oh sorry mum – here you go,” said one, handing me their empty raison packet.

“Oh so I look like the rubbish bin now?” I asked.

It was time to do something about this. Wishing I’d done it sooner, I lined them up in front of me army boot-camp-style.

Trouble was, they found this hilarious and began saluting me. It did look rather ridiculous and reminded me of the Von Trapp family pre Fraulein Maria so I laughed despite myself.

That completely lost the effect I was hoping for and so I had to start again – this time with a prop.

“Right, I am going to set the oven timer and you have ten minutes to clean up this house,” I ordered, rapping the wooden spoon on the bench for effect.

As usual, the respect they have for the oven timer (which still baffles me) had the desired effect and they shot into action.

The house was tidy in no time and they were ready for my inspection before the beeper went off.

Despite the day not starting well – their stationary hadn’t arrived and we discovered a uniform was still left at a friend’s house from the year before – both these problems were solved by day’s end with the arrival of the courier and the return of the uniform and I had three packed lunchboxes lined up in the fridge the night before and three excited kids tucked up in bed.

“Have you had a good holiday?” I asked each one as I tucked them in.

“Yes, but I’m going to miss you when I’m at school mum.”

And strangely, I realised that despite all my complaining, I was going to miss them too.