SCHOOL HOLIDAYS

Normally one for loving any school holidays and all that it entails - this one is killing me slowly.......

I love having all my children at home with me and that is when I feel the most at ease (in a strange sense of the word) when they are all around me. I love all the extra children that find their way to this house too...... the comings and goings and all the noise BUT for some reason this week has been driving me mental. You would think the older and more independant they got, the easier it would be for me.  Less services that I would need to provide to keep them all happy....it just doesn't seem to be turning out that way. Instead I find the mess that is created by their independance and the different activities they are now interested in requires many more services than those needed in previous school holidays. Not only am I the cook, cleaner, nurse, taxi driver, art and craft teacher and entertainment, I have become so much more....... the bank, computer technician, negotiator between the two groups of children and their widening age gap, counsellor, Video rating mediator and dog walker (as he has now learnt how to get his lead down from its hook and throw it repeatedly at my feet until I give in)....... The grass is always greener as they say........and I think back to the days when they were all just pottering around the house playing with thier Barbies and happy with the Wiggles on the TV.  But on this side of the fence the kids can make me a cuppa, pack the diswasher and walk up to the shops by themselves.
Perhaps I should stop complaining............. "can someone buy me a cappacino on the way back from the Video shop please!!"