Day 1 Week 1

Day 1 of the school summer holidays 2015 is coming to an end.  How did you get on?  

I went to bed last night feeling fabulous knowing we didn’t have to be anywhere in the morning.  It was like Saturday but by a different name.  The kids could and would come downstairs by themselves and watch telly until I appeared.  Which wouldn’t be too much later.  We all had a little lie on.  Maybe half an hour, forty minutes longer than usual.

I was expecting today to be a bit hairy.  Mainly because at the risk of sounding like that mother, I laid down a little ground rule before they went to bed last night.  And that was; the same Xbox rule applies over the summer holidays - none before 3pm.

“What?”

“You’re killing me!”

“Seriously?”

“Can I have a treat?”

I told them to expect Monday and possibly the rest of the week to be hard until they got used to it but this rule was going to be implemented no matter what.  Mornings are for reading, writing, being outside, getting jobs done and being kind to each other trying not to kill each other for the next 8 weeks.  End of.

I put the control thingers in the microwave before I went to bed.  Removing temptation as it were.

And yes, I agreed the weekends would be as normal – Xbox all the way if that was what they wanted. 

There were, of course, a few hic-coughs.  Moaning over new sandals, having to go on a laundry run, having to collect coffee in the supermarket and no Xbox.

But we got there.

The sandal debacle was solved by yet another “not my best moment” example when I pulled into a layby and told the offender that if he didn’t stop giving out about his second pair of shoes in as many weeks, he would be the one that goes to Doggy Day Care and Juno would come to Rosslare for the week instead of him.  I shut them up in the supermarket by allowing them to select two types of freezer treats.

At the time of writing my checklist looks a little like this:

Kids.                                 Still number 4.  None of them got broken.

Swear words.                   None.  Surprisingly.

Fights.                              Several.  Possibly more than 10.  All minor.

Laundry.                           Three loads.

House.                              Still standing.

Wine.                                 Half a bottle.

Morale.                              Pretty damn good.

I still can’t quite believe we are at the end of June already.  Let’s hope the next two months aren’t in a mad panic to be over too quickly.