Back to School

Like millions of other parents this week, my boys posed for me by the front door, and I took the traditional ‘first day of a new school year’ photo.

I experienced a fleeting pang as my dear first-born son, Skye was missing from the line up and would have been super excited to be heading off to secondary school (OMG am I THAT old?).

These feelings of heartache cannot last long as a second later, we were all sprinting along the road, the wagon loaded with kit (although inevitably with missing items), leaking water bottles, wellies that are quite possibly a size too small, winter coats, summer hats but above all, wearing BIG SMILES.

However, the morning hadn’t quite gone as smoothly as I had hoped, and sitting on my own at home now, with a quiet house that I haven’t experienced in months, the emotional baggage one buries to get through each day is bubbling to the surface. So, instead of falling to pieces or cracking on with the gazillion entries on my ‘to do’ list before collecting Sonny at midday, (pause to set alarm on my phone so I don’t forget that) not to mention the 18-mile run I need to do today to keep up with my London Marathon training (HELP!), I thought I would sit down with a coffee and try to work out what is actually important in life. Too deep for a Tuesday morning? OK, I will start with the somewhat humorous start to my day.

6.15am Wake up next to my husband – his head crammed with an inspirational presentation about the term ahead to deliver to a school full of pupils and staff who would all rather still be on their summer holidays. Mine, whirling like a cyclone with all the things I need to remember to do this morning, starting with, the question as to why on earth I stayed up watching The Martian last night in some vain hope to extend the holidays just a few more hours.

I don’t remember who spoke first but our conversation before Andrew left for work, was a string of memos for each other and I feel bad now that I didn’t even wish him luck.

6.20am Check phone – Only 64 new notifications, mainly from frantic mothers from 3 school WhatsApp groups, asking questions and sending grateful or confused emojis.

6.25am Shower, dress, rouse the sleeping bodies (phone pings a few more times) I’d better check, it could be something urgent I have missed.

7am Sort, bag and label all the second-hand uniform I need to hand to people at various rendezvous points this morning and answer, a now torrent of messages about sizing, additions and cancelled requests – BREATH – You offered to sell this as a kindness to another mum who has moved away, and she will be very grateful for the extra pennies. (Phone pings)

7.15am The twelfth time calling upstairs for everyone to come down for breakfast, the tone sounding a little less like a calm ‘Miss Honey’ with a slightly hysterical pitch creeping in. BREATH – they will be downstairs soon and we still have plenty of time, don’t dampen their spirits.

7.30am Finally, everyone has the correct spoon (must be the one with rainbow dots, that is still dirty in the dishwasher for Beau, definitely NOT a baby spoon for “I’m a big boy now” Sonny, a knife for Jesse because he does not like any of the cereal on offer and would now like a round of toast with the correct bread and finally, no spoon at all for Flynn because he is not Flynn but a hybrid Quetzalcoatlus crossed with a Pachycephalosaurus dinosaur and they would just eat from the bowl. BREATH – They have great self-worth and wonderful imaginations that will take them far in life.

7.45 “Ten minutes until we need to leave everyone, have you got your shoes on and brushed your teeth?”

“Yes Mumza.”

Dash outside to feed the bunnies and return inside to find Flynn in floods of tears because he has just realised that we do not own stick insects as pets anymore (they in fact died of old age, about 8 months ago).

Flynn: “Those guys were my best ever pets and the only pets I can ever love. (sniff) Look, I have real tears.” (Phone pings)

Jesse: “Well you can’t have loved them that much if you didn’t know they were dead.”

Flynn: (escalated crying)

BREATH – Children have feelings about many things we may not remember as adults, it is very important for them to feel heard and have their emotions validated - just not when we have 4 mins to leave the house. (Phone pings)

7.50am Sonny and Beau: “Look at this slug, he could be our new pet… oh, my hands are covered in slime and it won’t come off.” BREATH – They don’t understand that snails and slugs can carry lung worm and it is great that they have demonstrated their compassionate side, but now I have to scrub off slug slime and we only have 2 minutes to leave the house! (Ping, ping, ping)

7.53am Right, let’s go, why are you wearing sliders instead of your school shoes??? BREATH – running short on the reasoning and rational capacity. Lots of chastising.

7.55am I have officially morphed into Miss Trunchbull. We should have left by now, quick line up outside for a photo, but be careful of the massive….too late. Outside the front door, there is a huge puddle of water we have been waiting for the drainage to be addressed now for 4 years. BREATH - Patience level alert – rock bottom. Dry shoes, (ping, ping) mute phone.

8.01am Beau: (gasp) “I MUST put my lip salve on for the photo, Granny always puts her lipstick on before she goes out of the house. It is in my special box by my bed, or in the den with the soft toys, or maybe under the swing in the back garden.” BREATH

8.02am I am now brushing their hair with a little more vigour that perhaps is appropriate and scratch Flynn on the neck with the side of my ring.

Flynn: “Ahhh, is there blood? I’m dying.” BREATH

8.05am ‘Snap’ Let’s go, no racing.

And so it went on….

At the third set of school gates, I stopped in my tracks when a young lad arrived in a wheelchair having visibly undergone chemotherapy over the holidays. As he was wheeled in to greet the class and start his school day, Flynn and Beau looked at me and I knew they were instantly thinking about Skye. They don’t fully understand what their friend at school will be enduring, no one can truly understand, but it is important to do more than just feel sorry for someone and then get on with one’s own day. We all have it in ourselves to be better than that. However hard, it is so important to pause and think about how someone else might be feeling. Anything that life threw at us this morning would pale into insignificance for that other family. So many people are going though devilishly tough times and an element of selfishness is required to operate, but just sending a message saying you are thinking about someone, or an unspoken compassionate squeeze of the arm can have such a profound impact on someone who is hiding pain.

When we live in a society that operates at a ‘breakneck’ pace, it so very hard to make sure that we remember what really matters and keep true to the saying ‘Treat others as you would like to be treated yourself’. Everything was getting the better of me this morning and I did not behave well towards my children or my husband. Yes, I am only human and yes, it is easy to always come up with excuses as to why we snap but I do feel somewhat ashamed and will apologise to everyone this evening because I feel that it is important for them to hear that I am sorry for all the projected stress I laid at their feet. I will then follow that up with amending the alarms to go off 15 minutes earlier, draw up a new ‘house points’ reward chart and perhaps not sign up to yet another school WhatsApp group – can I really handle 4 simultaneously???

God speed and good luck with the rest of term to all you yummy mummies and daddies out there.

Affected by a brain tumour?

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