With the Summer Holiday a month away it’s time to start planning and checking we are ready. My favourite circus skill is the Summer Holiday juggle and I am partway there to perfecting it. I say partway because in 10 years time I shall be sunning myself in my holiday home wondering what the kids are up to! (Kidding Olive you can live with me forever 😉 )

➕ Start Planning: Using my super duper Summer Holiday Planner start filling in events, working days, playdates, holidays and hang it somewhere everyone can see.

➕ Schedule Social Media 

➕ Sort Your Finances: Put money aside for the holidays from your regular income but also look at ways to declutter and sell things you no longer need, you can even do a car boot with the children. Or possibly instant cash via Cashlady.com or look at ways to spend your loyalty card points for example days out using Tesco Clubcard.

➕ Chill Out: That’s right! Yes, the Summer Holiday juggling 3 delightful children and trying to earn a penny or two for them to spend before it’s even hit my bank account is INSANE. But I am stepping away from my saintly glow of “I am a mum in business and I can have it all” because let’s face it the school routines suck eggs!  I REALLY miss the spontaneity and adventures we had circa September 2011 when Moo started school and the world changed. I put the reception year mishaps down to new baby Olive but then September 2012 saw Megan starting reception too and I realised that I am NOT cut out to be a SCHOOL MUM! I have had children at school now for 8 years and I still feel like a swan frantically paddling.

101 reasons why I am GLAD the summer holiday is starting (in no particular order) :

1. Being Pleasant: Yes I am a miserable so and so! I really don’t want to speak to anyone until I’ve had 3 cups of coffee. Plastering on a fake smile, nodding and greeting 100’s of perky women (who look like models) in the morning is not for me!
2. Relaxed Mornings: No screaming “come on!!” no waking up a tired girl at 8am on Friday then making her do an hours worth of tasks in 30 minutes! Slow mornings, getting ready for the day at our own pace instead of 5 people trying to use the bathroom at the same exact moment.
3. No lunch-box woes EVERY morning!: I really wish Daddy Moo wouldn’t eat in the middle of the night! Although I can’t really blame him as it’s more to do with poor shopping and meal planning skills. Before Middle School, I’d arrive most Tuesdays at 10:30am with said lunch-boxes made up from the weekly trip to the supermarket.
4. Someone forgetting something: PE kit, permission slip and their lunch.  I love spending my morning driving backwards and forwards to school.
5. Making an effort: Getting dressed at 7am to come home and change back in “house clothes” at 8:45am. Making an effort to do my hair just to inevitably scrape it into a ponytail. I almost miss the baby years when it was acceptable to look rough and be covered in baby sick.
6. The daily water bottle hunt: Why do all our flasks/water bottles vanish midweek and then appear in there 100’s on Friday (this is also true for lunchboxes where do they go during the week? Why do they always return saturated in yoghurt with a bruised banana? One of lifes many mysteries). And because Charlie is you know a pre-teen he’s too cool for an actual flask instead opting for a plastic empty water bottle, which we still lose in our thousands I can hear the planet screaming at me!
7. Tardiness: No walk of shame. You know the one where I’m coming up the drive and the ENTIRE West Moors populations of mums are coming down the drive. I may as well have a huge banner saying “Yes I’m always late”. This is one of the many reasons I love Middle School I just stop the car and they jump out!
8. Driving: Our schools are too far from us to walk. BUT why is it my car never has ANY petrol? Literally, as soon as I turn the key the red light starts flashing and we are out of petrol, of course, we are also running late.
9. Other Drivers: Why does the area outside of school suddenly make people really bad drivers? I’ve lost count of the amount of time I’ve stopped to allow a gaggle of children to cross the road and some impatient person has cut in front of me. Drivers who see the lollipop man and speed up so they don’t have to stop, parents who become inconsiderate and park inappropriately; on double yellow lines, across driveways, parking across empty spaces in the car park to avoid getting blocked in, drive over pavements as they don’t want to wait in a queue. You name it we’ve seen it!
10. What’s your name again?: NOT one Mum knowing your name as you don’t EVER get to school before 8:50am or 3:05pm and constantly being referred to as Charlie’s or Megan’s Mum or Mrs Giltrow or even Jo! (shudder!)
11. RAIN: Why does it only rains between the hours of 8:30-9:30am and 2:30-3:30pm?
12. The constant list of things your child MUST bring to school:  £1. Their favourite book. A teddy. Permission slips. A fruit-based snack. A coloured t-shirt in the colour you most definitely DO NOT own for Sports Day. A costume for dress like a Viking day. A map of the entire world made from sweet wrappers (OK I made up the last one).
13. Homework: Thought up by teachers to torture mums who have children who’d rather play in the garden or build dens. During parent-teacher consultations when the teacher remarks on the poor concentrations skills I bite my tongue instead of announcing “have you tried bribing her with chocolate and a Hatchimal? This is how we get homework done?”.
14. I shall not miss my Mummy friends in fear of my children looking ridiculous or sad sending me messages to make sure I remember it’s a non-uniform day.
15. School Trips: Especially middle school ones, yes it’s great you went to France with your friends but you’d better be sure I’m adding that £385 to the money you owe me when you get a job! What I dislike is you pay for the trip then there are half a dozen other things you need to buy in order for them to go!
16. After School Clubs: Wednesdays horrid after school jumble because my children hate me. Driving from my house to Middle School 🚗 to the First School (in the next village past my house!) 🚗 back to Middle School (again literally driving past my front door) then finally 🚗 home. It’s obviously the best way to spend from 3:30 – 4:30. The things we do for our children!
17. Finding party invites in book bags the week after the party.
18. Getting to July and realising I still don’t know any of the teaching assistants names.
19. The neverending stream of missing uniform: Anyone else spend all weekend washing and STILL on a Monday morning, their school jumper or tie is suddenly missing or dirty?!
20. Reading: Realising that of all the books you have been reading with your child not one of them was actually the school reading book and no-one is aware of the utter reading genius that is said child. (OK not quite a genius but we do read)
21. Bedtime Routine: There’s nothing better than ditching the bedtime routine. Allowing the children to go to bed exhausted and dirty, not clean and at 7pm because they have school tomorrow.
22. School Shoes: Spending A LOT and that is A LOT of money on school shoes which are not only ugly but by the end of term held together with Gorilla Glue and Duct Tape. Concrete playgrounds should be banned!
23. Random After School Sales of Sweets/Ice-cream: Hey guys guess what the sun is shining so we bought out Iceland’s ice lolly supply and we are going to sell them back to you 10x the retail price! There’s nothing I love more than a sticky Olive mess in the back of my car on route to pick up the older children. Lucky me!
24. Lay-ins: Yup I’m going to say it (possibly only once) I WILL let my children get up and watch TV while I lay in bed until 9am on more than one occasion! I’ve earned a slow morning or 7 whole Summer Holiday weeks of them!

Meh! Maybe 101 was too ambitious if you think of any I have missed out do pop them in the comments ⤵️

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