I smell holidays

The good thing about having teenagers/pre-teens is that they tend to spend much of the morning in bed and then to lounge around for several hours before finally getting ready to do something at about 3pm, meaning if you get up early you have done a full day’s work before they’ve even got into gear. This leaves the rest of the day clear for summer holiday stuff like dropping them at their mate’s house, washing up or forcing them to go for a walk.

Everyone is still looking very wrung out from term time. Only son got stung by a bee and retired to bed on the first official day of the holidays. Daughter three has been doing face masks because she is worried about spots. Daughter two wafts around with what looks like toothpaste all over her face and daughter one has a long list of things she needs to get done over the holidays, including reading all the great works of literature, earning some money and learning to drive.

My partner got back from Spain at 1am on Sunday due to flight delays and is finding it harder than normal to get to the end of the week as a result of this plus a weekend of going out till 4am with his friends.

My weekend was similar. Daughter one had a friend over and we all went to Ikea for lunch. Only son overdosed on a mix of cherryade and cola at the free refill and then ran round and round the lighting section before announcing a desperate need for the toilet as we lined up in a 10-person queue and everyone else disappeared to the bargain section. He expended all the sugar an hour later in Epping Forest, climbing trees and making Eeyore houses. Daughter three collapsed in my bed and I got trapped between her and only son at around 5am.

The good news is that the parental holidays are just 10 days away and we can almost taste them so even if I have to do 1,000 things for work before I get to them, it doesn’t seem so bad because at some point very soon it will be me having that long lie-in. I live in hope.

*Mum on the run is Mandy Garner, editor of Workingmums.co.uk.

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