School's Out For Summer

It is approximately 64 hours until Oldest Boy and Shy Boy get their school holidays.

They will be free from school for 8 weeks.  I will not calculate the hours for that.  8 weeks is a much nicer timeframe altogether.   I can handle eight weeks.

In one way it horrifies me how quickly this last school year has flown by.  It has been the quickest yet.  I will have a First Holy Communicant next summer.

How did that happen?

The school year is actually only 9 months long.  So if those 9 months flew, the next 8 weeks will pass by in fourteen days.

Yeah, right.

As per usual, I am both looking forward to and dreading the school break with equal amounts of trepidation and skittishness. 

These are the things I won’t miss when they are on their school holidays. 

• ·Morning times.  Because of the multiple dressings.  The shoes.  The breakfasts.  The teeth brushings.  The getting the dog into the house.  The school bags.  The fact half an hour can pass in exactly three minutes forty seven seconds.  I timed it.
• School runs.  Sometimes Smallest Boy needs to be woken for the afternoon runs.  I hate waking him so much I have stood over his cot chewing my fingernails to dust as I contemplate actually leaving him there.  In the house.  Alone.  The what if’s if I do are so horrific, I always, always gently tickle his cheek to wake him up.  I still hate doing that even if he does wake with a smile on his face and never seems to mind.  I mind!
• Homework.   In fairness to them both, they don’t take long doing this.  In fact, most evenings I give up after the sixth attempt at trying to get Shy Boy to complete his.  He does it in under a minute the following morning.  As I’m wriggling a toothbrush around in his mouth. 
• Uniforms.  God, the uniforms.  The track suits.  The spilt yogurt dread.  The washing.  The occasional bringing home of the wrong tracksuit top.  The uniforms!
• ·Lunches.  Preparing ham sandwiches, chocolate sandwiches, yes chocolate sandwiches, don’t you dare judge!, fruit, yogurts, cheese strings.  Remembering to hide a couple of treats earlier on in the week for Treat Friday so they don’t get eaten.  Remembering to put a carton of juice in each lunch bag on Treat Friday.  Remembering, desperately remembering not to get the lunch bags mixed up.  That one time hasn’t been forgiven yet.
• Bed times.    I like our lot to be off to bed early.   9pm on Friday is the absolute latest.  A funny thing happens to me when they all head up the stairs.  I start to shut down both physically and mentally.  It’s like I know I don’t have to be on red alert anymore and so I can relax.  In summer they stay up that little bit longer.

On the other hand, there are a couple of things I will miss when they are off for 8 weeks. 

As much as I dislike the stress of school runs, I enjoy very much the chats at the school gate.   And the cup of coffee with Mister Husband afterwards.   The early bed times are great for obvious reasons but with our lot, going to bed late doesn’t mean they will sleep on the following morning.  Plus I won’t get that lovely couple of hours to myself in the evenings before tiredness slams itself into my eyeballs and forces me off to my own scratcher.

But the next 8 weeks are going to whizz past.  I already know that.

Watch out playgrounds.  I know where you live.