10 things I learned on my holiday

Over an intimate sushi lunch today, Mr7 and I were discussing his imminent return to school tomorrow. He is ambivalent about the whole prospect. I am somewhat more excited. We talked about what he might have to do this week. He has choir practice, environment club, library... But what about in actual class?

"I suppose we'll have to write a recount about what we did on our holidays," he said, staring into his soy sauce with an Eeyore-like expression.

"We had fun!" I said.

"We did," he agreed. "But it's not much fun writing about it."

I tend to agree. The joy of the holiday is in the actual having of the holiday. But given it's a slow blog night, I am going to lead the way with my own Holiday Recount. Ten things I learned on my holiday.

1. Holiday houses that are advertised as 'complete with everything' are never complete with sharp knives. There will be a knife. Which will be blunt. And you will cut your hand off attempting to slice onions with it.

2. Holiday houses that show ocean views on their websites will have ocean views... filtered through a stand of trees. This is excellent for bird watchers. Of course, the house next door to yours will enjoy uninterrupted, panoramic views of rolling waves and endless sands (see image, shot from out the front of the house next door...).

3. Other People always seem better prepared for holidays than you are. No matter how prepared you are. They will arrive earlier, settle in better, have wetsuits for water slides when it's 17 degrees celsius, have boogie boards, skate boards, scooters, bicycles, surfboards, ski boards, the right shoes, the right board shorts, the right everything. You will forget the ball. The Jenga. The binoculars. The [insert everything else you remember once you're an hour from home].

4. Other People are prepared to queue for hours to go on a Toboggan slide. Bad parents like you will suggest an ice cream and a game of Putt Putt instead.

5. You will play Putt Putt golf. Even if you never, ever play Putt Putt golf, or consider it, at any other time, you will play Putt Putt golf on holidays. And it will be fun. Note: beware mentioning the words 'Whip your butt' to your spouse before realising that any Putt Putt skills you may once have had were left behind with your 10-year-old self.

6. You will sit through a children's movie. As the entire theatre squirms, and wriggles, and crunches, and crackles, and whispers, and giggles, and snorts, and wiggles in the darkness around you, you will strain your ears to catch the storyline to whichever Holiday Blockbuster has been dumped in theatres. It will be Smurftastic.

7. It takes longer to get there than to get home. Whether you are driving to your destination, or riding your bike behind a seven-year-old three-quarters of the way through a 10km bike ride. This may or may not be because it's downhill on the way home. If you are four, you will not care how far it is in either direction because you will sit in your car seat or coast on your Tagalong bike without a care in the world.

8. You will swim. It may be below freezing, it may be raining, it may be on the verge of snowing, but if you have small children and there is a pool, you will swim.

9. The sun always comes out as you're packing the car to go home. Murphy's Law. Even if it's rained all week (which, I hasten to add, it did not), the sun will blaze in all it's shiny, golden glory when it's time to go home.

10. You will have fun. So much fun. And come home relaxed, recharged and ready to slog through until the next holiday.

So that's my effort. I look forward to comparing it with Mr7's work tomorrow. I suspect his will focus on the $8 bow and arrow set that he bought from the local $2 shop on our holiday and which won his heart to the exclusion of all else. His teachers will note that Other People had better holidays.

What would you add to my list? Tell me what you know about family holidays.

[image: the almost view from our bungalow at Merimbula Beach Caravan Park]

A small break in transmission

The little boys and I are off to Maxabella Land for a few days' bonding with the cousins to round off the school holidays. We are leaving the Builder at home with a good supply of spaghetti sauce and enough baskets of washing to fold to keep him off the streets for the forseeable future.

I did sit down to do some batch writing in an attempt to pretend that I'd never left the Fibro, but we all know now that batch writing doesn't really work for me. Better to be honest than to leave you with a series of What I Had For Lunch posts.

See you in a few days.

[image: Maxabella loves cake pops. We may get them for dinner.]

End of school hols…and what have we learned

Remember when you were a kid and the summer school holidays seemed to last for months. I thought it would be the same as the mother of a kid on holidays. That we’d be sitting around, staring at each other, wondering when it was all going to end.

Instead, six weeks have gone by in a nano-second. Admittedly, some days have been longer than others. The really hot days are as bad as the really wet days. Worse, in fact. At least on a wet day you can feel okay about six hours of dvds and ABC-2. When the sun is shining, the sky is a deep azure blue and the grass is growing a millimetre a minute, it seems like a sin to be indoors, curtains drawn, A/C blowing up a storm. But what else can you do?

Pool, yes. Beach, yes. Indoor shopping complex, yes. But only for about an hour each. So that takes you to midday, even if you do them all on the same day – what then do you do with the endless afternoon hours when you’re all counting down the minutes until Dad comes home. I take my hat off to single mums. I couldn’t cope without the change in energy that comes when The Builder enters the house.

It’s not so much that he does anything special, just that he’s new. At the end of a day that can feel very old by 9.30am.

But all that’s about to be over. Soon it will be morning routines, entertaining Mr 3 by myself (say what you like, but older siblings do have their uses), trying to get sleeps and work (I work when he sleeps) in by 2.30pm so we can collect the big First Grader from school.

I’m exhausted just thinking about it.

Part of me breathes a big sigh of relief that I’m down to one child again. The other part will miss the days of summer holidays. Even the reeeaaaallly long ones. Only them, not so much.