Confessions of a Mediocre Mum: Back to School Joy

I’m one of those Mums that loves every second I spend with my kids and try to make those seconds special or happy. I’m also one of those Mums that the second I’m not with my kids, those seconds are really special too.

Call it mean, call it unhealthy or just call it plain weird but the first day of school has recently become my favorite day of the year (second of course to Christmas, cause Christmas is really magical with kids).

My Son has been a 90mph kid since he could walk. He wakes up before 6am every morning and has already done several craft projects and levelled up on Angry Birds before I get out of bed at 6:30. He never gets tired and maintains a crazy level of energy until his head hits the pillow at 7:30pm. So the last day of school in July was met with some trepidation.

Usually we don’t go away during the Summer Holiday because it’s a crazy busy time of year and can be really expensive for Children in peak season. So, I had my Filofax at the ready and leaflet upon leaflet of fun (and mostly Free) days out to do with Rusty and Nola.

In total we enjoyed;

• 23 whole days at Wat Tyler Country Park, yes you read that correctly, 23. That’s 23 picnics I had to make, and 23 screaming arguments with the baby to have a nap in her buggy so Rusty could enjoy the inflatable’s and swings in peace.
• We went to the Sealife Centre in Southend and walked along the pier.
• We enjoyed 14 swimming sessions at 8am.
• We attended 2 Furry Animal Workshops at Pets At Home, which Rusty hated (“Argh! There’s dirt on my hands Mum!”) and Nola LOVED.
• We built 5 garden ‘Dens’ to eat our Lunch under and 1 bedroom tent which Rusty slept under for the whole 6 weeks.
• We went on 2 bike rides, which I am disappointed with. I LOVE my bike but Rusty still cant get the hang of it, so he really doesn’t enjoy it and at 6.5 years old he still has stabilizers which psyches him out even more. Adding that to the list for Halloween Half Term – Get him riding!
• We watched our entire Disney DVD collection and pretty much all of the Box Sets on DisneyLife. MY EYES!
• We made 1 batch of cupcakes.
• We went to 1 Wedding party.
• We spent approximately 9 hours (3 days) at SoftPlay. This was more for the baby but I’m pretty sure Rusty and his Cousins got more fun out of it then she did.
• We made 2 visits and spent over £50 at Build–A-Bear Workshop. This is Rusty’s most favorite place in the whole world. I didn’t grow up overly enjoying Teddy Bears, I find people like that a bit weird… enter my Son. He LOVES a soft toy.

         

Then to cap it all, we had in total 935 arguments about each and every one of the above. If you’ve got a 6 year old, you will understand the pain that comes with trying to have a reasonable discussion with them. The asking ‘Why?’ they pick up when they’re 2 or 3 never really goes away, it just gets worse. The thing is with Rusty, he is a born politician. He can argue his way out of anything he doesn’t want to do, and then when you do eventually wrangle him into doing it after several hours he will do it with a grin on his face and then take all the credit for having completed it and tell everyone how awesome he was at doing it. He brings so much joy to my life, but the joy has a twin sister called frustration. As the summer holidays drew to a close I could see a light at the end of the tunnel, I could see peace and quiet and calm and stillness.

Just as I was nearing the end of my patience tether, Schmidt and I took the kids down to Devon (another post on that later) in the very last week of the holidays so at least Rusty could go back to school and say he’d been away. We all had a great time, but 2 days in Schmidt turned to me and said, “You really do deserve a medal, how have you put up with this for the last 5 weeks?”. Sometimes that little acknowledgement is all you need to take the edge off, and I took a medal from him, in the shape of a large glass of wine and a bucket of garlic mussels. Yum.

 

     

So Monday night this week; uniform was laid out, baths were had, nails were cut, bedtime stories were read and packed lunches were made. As 7:30pm rolled around and I tucked him into bed he said,

“Mum, I’m so excited to be starting Year 2 tomorrow!”

Me: “I know, you’re such a big boy now, this year is going to be really good fun”.

Rusty: “Mum, I’m going to miss you every day and all the fun games we were playing. I cant wait til next summer”

Me: “Uh Huh……”

His first day back went brilliantly, and for the first time in 6 weeks, the baby went down for her nap at 10am in a silent house and I enjoyed my coffee in peace and watched The Vampire Diaries on catch up for 2 hours.

The first day back to school is a Win for Mum’s everywhere.

I’d love to hear about your Summer or how well you handle your kids in the holidays.

Lola x