Shove your slippers. Screw your jewellery. This mumma wants 5 seconds where nobody fights, asks for food or needs anything…
Ah school holidays… insert collective groan from every mum I know. You crept up on us again you sneaky buggers. There I was, merrily chugging along. Week 2, week 6. I thought I had plenty of time. And suddenly it was all school plays, dress mufti, dance concerts, bring a plates, early dismissals and class parties.
And here we are. Christmas holidays. The mother load of weeks (and weeks and weeks) of ‘quality time’.
Now I love my kids as much as the next mum. But sure as hell I don’t need to spend every freaking second with them to prove it. Yes there are a few (imaginary and or delusional) mums who love every minute of the school holidays. Good for you perfect mummy, good for you. I however am happy to own that I am #notoneofthem. I just want some time to myself!
Did you get that? I am NOT ONE OF THEM.
School holidays, as you know, mean long endless days. Did I say endless? There is only so much craft, board games, cubby houses and LEGO any woman can stomach in a day. And then the next. And the next. You get where this is going right…
Without the routine (and let’s be honest, by that I mean ‘break’) of school, there is a whole lot of time together. Which means my kids have a whole lot of time for their favourite sport… squabbling. If there is ever some kind of Olympic inclusion of squabbling as a post, my kids would take out gold and silver. And squabble about who got which.
School holidays also mean that other S word: snacks. Snacks. And more snacks. I could open a café with the amount of food required to get my kids through a day. Apparently all that squabbling is hungry work. Funny how they only eat 2.5 times during the normal school day but get them at home and we’re on meal rotation that seems to operate on 30-minute intervals. With the other 29 minutes in between allocated to squabbling or asking for more snacks.
All this school holiday squabbling and snacking means that I get a seriously bad case of what I call SIARS: Someone Is Always Requiring Something. You know the, Mum. Mum. MUM. (Is it normal to answer your own name with FOR FUCKS SAKE WHAT?? inside your head?)
In the shower? Mum. Can I have a snack?
In the toilet? Mum. Can I have a snack?
Preparing a snack? MUM. Can I have a snack?
You get the idea.
Add to all that joy the joy of Christmas. If time couldn’t drag any slower, add waiting for Santa into the mix. All that excitement and anticipation and desperate need to be good (no f*cking squabbling!) really makes December creep slowly. Advent calendars become like some sort of torturous motion countdown marking each small step in a very, very long wait.
So if you ask me what I want for Christmas, I’ll tell you. By the time Christmas crawls around, what I’d really like is 5 fucking seconds to myself.
And if I get it? It’ll be the second bloody Christmas miracle.
