School's Out

The dream:
The last day of school will be calm. I will lovingly plant a kiss on top of their clean little heads and send them into the classrooms with their sun cream applied, teacher's gifts in hands and looking like magazine children should look.

The reality: We begin the day with an argument. J2 is insisting on wearing his torn Nike trousers with his football (soccer)jersey. I insist on nice jeans. "You are NOT going to school on a non-uniform day looking like someone that just crawled out of Salvation Army's dumpster!". He spites me by putting on his school trousers and football jersey. Lovely. I will not be photographing that child today.


Then, as we gather the teacher's gifts, I look into J2's teacher's bag filled with tissue paper and realize... I never found a gift for her.
Well, I had, but decided against it.
This woman is reeeally hard to like and I know she has health issues that rule out my stand-by gift choice (chocolate, body pampering stuff, or anything scented). Perfect.
We end up late (which gets us laughed at since we live RIGHT NEXT DOOR to the school).
The best part? It WASN'T a non-uniform day.

Go ahead, start nominating me for my Mother of the Year award.

I pack the little Missy into the car and we run to town for a quick gift.
Yeah. I drive around for 30 minutes looking for a place to park. I joke you not. It's not like I wanted a close parking space, or a convenient parking space. I just wanted A parking space.

Fridays the town brilliantly closes down it's largest car park to hold a market. Only you don't know that until you have your car squeezed in to an impossible place to back out of.

I finally give up and go to the supermarket. Holding a wriggling beast that is nearly ready for a nap now, I dig through my wallet for a pound coin so that I can "rent" a trolley (that's shopping cart, Yank). I have two 50p coins.
I carry the beasty into the store to shop. As I'm in the biscuit (cookie and sweets) aisle, she is entertaining all with her skills of pulling bags of crisps off the shelf with lightening fast agility.
She picks out candies, she stomps colorful bows that won't adorn anyone's wrapped gifts now, and proceeds to pull the bottom Kinder Eggs out of the stacked display.
I am holding a couple of potted plants, an herb garden (for the Head Teacher who I also forgot), and more boxed sweets than I had planned on buying (try to catch me without a present again, will you?) and trying to keep her in my proximity so that I can pay and get out of the store.

Miss Ky is darting back and forth between me and the photo booth, so I am watching her (watching her nearly disable old folks with canes and walkers), not the checker, who is watching me with disdain (hey helpful one, you try to shop with her and I'll check your items through the machine while judging you).
I carry Miss Monsterchild and my newly acquired debt out to the car where I will sit the next ten minutes until traffic behind me opens up enough for me to back up.

These are the good times, aren't they?

It's lunch. Miss Ky is late for her nap. She sleeps, I prettily bag our treats... oh, I don't have cards.
I print photos I have of the recipients with my children and apply them to the front of a card.
Whew. Thank goodness I take a lot of photos.

It's time to collect the children. Wake up, micro-napper!

The dream:
Children will run out of the building with smiling faces and throw their happy little bodies into my arms.
The reality:
A2 makes it out to me all right, but his classmates are all a weepy mess (Year 6 had a "Leaver's Assembly", a little like our High School graduation, and the younger ones are very sad to see them go).
A1 comes out to tell me his teacher is crying.
J2's teacher is still yelling at them in the classroom, "You must not want to go very badly, I still hear talking!" (well, duh! It's the last day of school lady, they're excited). Eventually they come out... but no J2.
Hmmmm. He has gone out another door and is heading home. I love you too, son.

The dream: We will have a snack and then happily go through everyone's school work and they will tell me all about each piece, showing courtesy and respect to each other and waiting for their turn to speak.
The Reality: Do I even have to type it?

The dream: We will wake up, this first day of summer holiday, later than normal and be glad to be home with one another.
The reality. I think they were fighting over stupidity by 9am. I was shouting by 11.

Our plans are to see English Heritage sites, swim on our Summer Swim Passport, complete our summer reading goals (I may have gotten a little excited with my list... there's enough to read for the next two years), football practice, and BEACH time. in the rain. The rain we've had every day since... maybe I should start ordering Gopher wood online.

Hopefully our reality will not be a psychotic mom giving up after doing the crazy juggling act to just get them out of the house. and cleaning. Hopefully they won't turn my hair grey -- oh, too late.
I will be posting less (LESS, not stopping). I bow submissively to those of you that have been on summer break and are still posting. I don't know how you've done it.

You are my lifeline these days. You are my human contact in this chaotic reality I'm living, so you can bet I'll still be visiting and reading (wait, can that count towards my summer reading goal as well?).
The dream: You'll still be here when I get back...