Runaway

Zak left home for the first time yesterday.  It was about an ice cream.  An ice cream that he wasn't bought in the park as he had already had some popcorn and sweets at the cinema. The lack of ice cream led to some behaviour that resulted in his IPad evening slot being removed from him.  This resulted in him leaving home.

I was warned.  All the way back from the park he was telling me that he was leaving home. I told him that he most definitely wasn't, whilst keeping cool, calm and collected.  I was smugly planning on just quietly double locking the door when we got inside.  I was double bluffed however as I stopped the car on the drive and Zak leapt out and legged it down the road! Still wanting to play it cool, I kept unpacking the car and Sebi monitored events from the end of the drive.  Sebi seemed a little disappointed at his progress as I think he expected something more dramatic than his big brother loitering a few houses down. When you're gone you're gone however in Seb's eyes, and as I was moving Zak's scooter from the garage to the house, Sebi enquired as to why I was bothering because Zak wouldn't need it any longer if he wasn't here.  I'm surprised he hadn't moved his stuff into Zak's room and claimed squatter's rights within minutes.  On his next recky from the end of the drive, little brother was slightly more impressed with big brother's progress and fed back that he was now out of sight.  Oh.  Oops.  I'd wrongly assumed that he would loiter down the road and head back when I wasn't looking.  Triple bluffed.

Unfortunately at this precise moment my husband decided to return home.  I thought he made the enquiry in a much more reasonable manner than I would have done had the tables been reversed, about why he had just seen his nine-year old son on his own heading away from home along Ardens Way.

I must pause here and take a minute to explain the hierarchy in our house.  Seb's in charge and the rest of us do as he says.  No, only joking, (sort of).  I am the strict, disciplinarian parent; the boys are the kids and Stuart falls somewhere in between.  I'm not doing him a disservice by saying this - he would be in complete agreement.  He spends hours being silly with the boys: wrestling, football, computer games, making up comedy rhymes about fat people etc, etc; none of which I have any interest in at all.  The boys have the most amazing fun with him but unfortunately that has led to a slightly grey area when it comes to him being able to discipline them.  Quite often he will come to me if something really needs sorting out.  Stu = fun Dad.  Nikki = fun-spoiler Mum.

I think therefore, when Stu found me on the drive with one son having lost the other one and I didn't seem in that particular moment to be doing that much about it, he relished his rapid promotion through the sensible parenting ranks...

Stu and Sebi went inside and I began backing the car out of the drive, tail between my legs, with no particular Plan B about how I was going to actually get Zak to get into the car when I found him.  Halfway out of the drive I noticed a blue cap peeking out from behind a tree.  Slowly I returned the car to the drive, went into the house and waited for the return of the fugitive.

At this point I am pleased to say that the super-early pre-teen behaviour seemed to bury itself again for another day and the rest of the afternoon was passed in a relatively amicable truce.  We're off to the park again in a bit; I reckon I might just buy some ice creams today...

Summer Lovin'

Summer holidays are odd.  As a teacher you spend the ENTIRE year hanging out for this six week break and then it seems to be over in a flash.  I almost take the fun out of the summer holidays but being obsessed by the fact I should be enjoying every single little minute of them.  I counsel myself as we go through, after a week by saying, 'well, I've still got five weeks to go' - FIVE WEEKS!  Halfway through I'm equally as buoyant, and then we get to now; two weeks to go, and you realise that you are nearer the end than the beginning.  I comfort myself at the point by saying it is basically like starting an Easter or Christmas break now and look at all the time I've had already.  Next weekend I'll be convincing myself it is like the start of a half term and all the while I have a slightly suppressed, unusual sensation that when work starts again, I might quite like it.  (Oops - I've said it aloud now.)

We really are making the most of these holidays but I think I got a little bit overexcited and may have packed too much in.  Our suitcases were unpacked last weekend from France and repacked for Suffolk with a day at Warner Bros. Studios squeezed in the middle. We're back today from Suffolk and although a lovely time was had; the constant high of excitement from the kids resulted in slightly less-than-perfect behaviour between 4am and 5.15am this morning.  (I should have stuck to my resolute guns about not letting them share a room!)  We are all officially knackered.  I wonder if this is full-time-working-mother-guilt rearing her ugly head again?  Everybody says to me that teaching is so perfect when you have small kids because you can really re-group in the holidays.  It's true!  I have spent so much quality time with my lovelies in the last four weeks that I've completely remembered why I decided to work full time! ;-)  I'm kidding.  Sort of.

Yet still I can't seem to stop: Wicked tomorrow, Gullivers on Monday, Whipsnade on Tuesday - so much to do and it is imperative that we must all have fun at all times.  In fact, all you end up with is spoilt brats that moan when they have to fill an hour or two of their own time at home with a house and garden full of toys.  'But I'M BORED...' laments Zachary when I have dared to remove an IPad away from his trance-like gaze.

The added problem is that the no alcohol in the week situation really doesn't seem to apply to school holidays.  I'm a miserable bastard during term time so school holidays is when I get to do a huge amount of socialising.  Dinner on a Monday night?  Sure, why not?  Wine tasting on a Wednesday?  Brilliant - bring it on.  The only problem is that if you remember correctly my alcohol intake is meant to be vaguely limited at the moment and I'm currently trying to schedule in my next blood test when I will have had at least 48 hours off the sauce.  September 6th it is then!

I also reckon that I have spent approximately ten hundred million pounds in the last four weeks having so much fun.  I feel a few days of £1.50 morning cinema tickets (because who wants to eat popcorn at 10am?!) and laps of the park on scooters coming on to ensure there is enough money left in the bank to pickle my liver in cheap champers before it is head down again until half term.  Happy holidays everyone!  :-)