Tuesday, October 7, 2014

School's Back! Witness Protection Complete!


IMAGE : THE MOTHER LOAD | School's Back! Witness Protection Complete!

Hooray! School's back!! 

While I'm a fan of hols and the absence of such things like school lunches and early morning threats about going to school in pyjamas, I love coming home after the first day of term drop off. Bliss! First, coffee. Then worship the silence. Then housework.

Miss A went back this morning with her usual amount of tummy nerves, mostly revolving around people's reaction to her new short haircut. A paranoid fourteen year old in a six year old's body is she. God help me when she is ACTUALLY fourteen. Miss O went back filled with happiness; that girl fades like a wilting flower if she doesn't have copious amounts of social interaction with her friends. Her Dad is the same.  He's always the last to leave every party and God forbid, she'll undoubtedly be the same when her time comes. (The sounds of clinking glasses and extreme house music is already ringing in my silence-loving ears).

Our holidays were pretty good on the whole. The home bathroom renovation meant that the kids and I were exiled to the beach house which in theory sounds wonderful and mostly it was, but it also felt like some kind of witness protection program where my children and I were confined to each other's company with a directive to have as little amount of contact with the real world as humanly possible. Man, those two kids can talk; like a pair of jackhammers. I forget what they're like - holidays always remind me of their vocal abilities, at times, like a poke in the eye with a stick. Still, around the mindless chatter at unnecessary volume, we indulged in open fires, beach walks, bike rides, too many packeted chocolate cakes, made tree swings, and I made a somewhat feeble attempt at enforcing limited wifi use. Sometimes I won, sometimes I didn't. Admittedly, devices meant quiet and in turn that meant sanity for all so I relaxed the rules a little more than usual. There were lots of pyjama days and probably more laziness than there should have been but the way I see it, that's what holidays are about (or at least that's how I choose to justify my own lack of parenting motivation thanks largely to a super-dodgy neck).

Mr Mother Load stayed home, went to work and supervised the renovation (bless him). Let's just say he became very good at scheduling toilet breaks and showers in their various locations. Poor bugger. Better him than me, though. Imagine how much I would have complained!!? We saw him sporadically down at the beach house, then as we arrived home finally released from our self-imposed witness protection program over the weekend, he kissed us farewell and darted out the door to Las Vegas. Yeah - that's not a metaphor for better times. He really did head to Las Vegas. Now I'm in charge of plumbers and builders. But I have a shower, a toilet and a bit of peace, so I'm good with that.

Today, the house is quiet. My ears are resting. There's no one rustling around in the pantry insisting upon chocolate biscuits before 10.00am. There's no one nagging me to play Uno Moo for the one hundredth time and at some point in the next couple of hours, I may very well eat a square of chocolate outside of the confines of the pantry. And I may take my own sweet time about it, digesting it appropriately.

It's the small things. 



3 comments :

  1. Haha! I eat chocolate hiding behind the cupboard door too. Xx

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    1. Don't we all OneSmallLIfe? I thought it was a parenting rite of passage. There will come a day when we can proudly emerge from hiding and scoffing. For now though, CHEW AND SWALLOW!!! xx

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  2. You have chocolate left at the end of the holidays? Well done, that's will power.

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