It’s been a bit quiet around here. If you follow me on Facebook or instagram you’ll be sick of my holiday photos know why. If you don’t why not follow now!
We had a fabulous holiday. A fabulous family holiday, where you still are on call to provide endless water and juice and snacks, and where a child may need to go down to the restaurant basement toilet 5 times during one meal, and where everyone needs to be slathered in suncream (is suncream the only thing we use that word for?) before leaving the apartment every morning, and where one child decides that it’s absolutely her right to remember what whinging is as soon as you arrive and to practice it almost constantly unless she is in the pool or has an ice-cream in her mouth for the first six days.
It all worked out wonderfully in the end. There were fraught moments sure, but on the whole most of the time most of the kids were in good form and well behaved. Especially when they were getting their own way. They had so much fun. I didn’t think about work once. I sat around a bit, I parented, I read two and a bit books. I learned how to play my son’s favourite Ipad game so we can have something to talk about. I played Dobble lots (thanks Darby family for the introduction) until someone hid it and forgot that they had hidden it until the day we were packing it to go home and we’d asked in reception every day
I’ve loads to blog about the trip and I’ll hopefully get it up here in the next week or so. It just went so quickly in the end.
It was HORRIBLE to go back to work yesterday. When I’m on leave I tend to forget that I work, and due to our late flight I had Tuesday off and then my usual Wednesday off so it was a huge effort to set the alarm for 5.50am. At 6.15am I found myself staring into the wardrobe trying to remember what it is that I usually wear to work.I forgot my password, but luckily I had written it down. Unfortunately I had left my notebook where I had written is down at home. I had to go through the whole password resetting rigmarole that took about an hour in total because I read my colleague’s handwriting wrong and locked myself out again. It wasn’t going great really. I had a muffin. I talked about my holiday to anyone who asked. I felt sad. I missed the kids. I know, who knew. I missed them. I wanted to drop them to camp and collect them and be at home listening to their stories.
Wonderful children that they are they kindly arranged to knock all these feelings out of me by fighting with me and each other before we got into the car when I collected them yesterday evening and being back to their usual selves. I got home, emptied gear bags and lunchboxes, prepared snacks, fielded all the questions that started with a quizzical “Mam?” and we were back to normal. I needed a break already.
Today wasn’t as bad. I’ll get used to it. And then there’s a bank holiday weekend yippee!
Meanwhile I am off on my first ever “blog freebie” weekend away tomorrow. Check out my instagram (because I still think that I’m too old for snapchat, despite the FOMO) to see where I’m going and with who.
Here’s a teaser holiday photo to whet your appetite. Who knows where this is?
Voting is still open in the Boots Maternity and Infant Awards- I’m one of ten finalists in the “Best Parenting Blog” category. Thanks so much to everyone who voted for me in the first round. Voting in the next round is open until 28th August and you can vote from anywhere in the world. You can vote by clicking here and choosing Bumbles of Rice. (It’s easiest to do if you click the Facebook option). Any votes and shares are very, very much appreciated. Thanks!
