Oh. My. God.

I’ve stopped unpacking the groceries to write this post. I can see them on the kitchen floor and the kids are ferreting through the bags like beggars, each looking for the bright new shiny food. If an outsider were to witness their squabbling, their pushing each other out of the way to get to the fresh treats, you might get the impression I don’t give them three squares a day.

But enough of that. No, this post is about something else entirely.

School holidays.

Four days in and already these holidays have me bent squarely over the table: and not in a sexy, James Spader in Secretary kind of way; more in a Rising Sun this is going to end very badly for you way. Because, seriously? The kids are tearing each other apart. I don’t know if it’s the end of Daylight Savings, the procession of birthday parties we’ve been to, a little sniffle of a cold, or boredom (perhaps all of the above) but Jesus. Never have I felt like a drink at 10am more in my life.

I realise there are a variety of different activities – free or otherwise – that I could take the kids to participate in, but at those places I’m just as afraid of running into similarly on-edge parents. Like the other afternoon when we were at the library and walked in on the end of a craft session and they were making frogs. Okay, so we go in. And when I say ‘go in’ it’s meant in the militarily brave and audacious way. I happened to have the masking tape in my hands at one point and a woman pointed at me and said, “Can I have that?” and I said, “Sure – just let me break off a bit and I’ll give it to you.” She then did the ‘gimme gimme’ signal with her fingers and repeated, “You ready?” and I was like “JUST WAIT FIVE SECONDS.”

Holidays, eh? Perhaps it’s the whole Easter thing. Christ died for our sins at this time. So we’re getting them all out in the open early…

Right. The kids have had their glut and are complaining because I’ve put the Easter Eggs (for other children – I’m not so mean as to let them get peeks of their own!) out of reach.

Time to prepare today’s strategy for survival.