Danielle Symes: First day of school and I can’t WAIT!

As I sit here writing this I can hear my two kids out in the lounge-room… one is yelling made up words along the lines of poo poo and bummy face at the top of his lungs and the other is crying because, well that’s just what she does after 3pm. We are at the point of school holidays where the crafts have been exhausted, the park is a bore, we are too broke to go to one of those inside playgrounds again and the guilt of watching too many movies has set in so I have put a ban on the TV from 9am-5pm… that one is self inflicted pain but I had to draw the line somewhere and that line was when Harper started talking with an English accent because he had watched an absurd amount of Peppa Pig.

I started off so well making sure we had an activity for every single day and I truly outdid myself with the crafts. We made cards for grandparents, DIY perfume with flowers collected from the neighbourhood, we sculpted with clay, we sewed dolls clothes AND I let my kids use glitter… GLITTER! If that doesn’t get a standing ovation from the mum bun crowd I don’t know what does. But, there are only so many times you can stop the toddler from ingesting beads and the 5 year old from going rouge with the paint before you eventually crack and admit to yourself that crafts are for places like Kindergarten where they are trained in the art of pack up and clean up and not giving a f*!k about paint on the walls.

So here we are… I’m bored, they’re bored and the countdown till the end of school holidays has begun! But this right here is where I feel like somewhat of a lone ranger. You see, this is Harper’s first year of school and unlike all the other mums that are putting up crying face emojis on #flashbackfriday pictures of their ‘babies’, I am over here counting down till 5:30pm everyday so that I can throw the kids at Brad, pour myself some wine and catch up on some insta-stalking. And for all those thinking it, don’t worry I know I’m an asshole. Yes I appreciate my children and yes I know how lucky I am to have two healthy kids but after one of ‘those days’ (you know the ones) I can’t help but think that Harper is just as ready for school as I am ready to drop him off at the gate. The sass on that kid has amplified in the last couple of months and when I tell him off I am met with eye rolls and talking back with the occasional storm off accompanied by yelling ‘FINE THEN! I’M GOING AWAY FROM YOU NOW AND YOU GET NO MORE HUGS EVER!’ (we are not quite at ‘I hate you mum’ but this one still stings).

It’s the first time I have really noticed the age gap between my two kids being an issue, Harper being 5 and Charlie will be 2 in May. He wants to make the crafts but she wants to eat the crafts. Even jumping on the trampoline has become difficult when Harper wants to perform majestic aerobics but his routines usually end up with a knee in the side of Charlie’s head because she doesn’t understand to get out of the way. I feel like I am constantly telling at least one of them off lately and I can’t help but think that if Harper was at school we would get a bit of that balance back. I would get to hang with Charlie during the day and do the things she loves doing that bore the hell out of Harper then come 3:30pm we will both miss him so much that just hanging out together will be enough to keep us all content (that’s the fairytale I have concocted anyway). As the saying goes… ‘absence makes the heart grow fonder’ and right now I think some absence is what we all need.

Aside from all that though I am genuinely excited to see Harper start school. It does mark the offical moment where he is no longer my baby boy, but it comes with so many new and exciting things for both me and him. I can’t wait to see him learn to read and bring home his first piece of homework, I am pumped for him that he gets to spend everyday with other kids and the thought of seeing him in his little uniform is up there with when I put him in a fluffy bear onesie when he was 3 months old (cue ‘storage almost full notification’). I’m personally excited about meeting the other mums and having a new group of friends to hang out with; friends that are going through the exact same things as me at the exact same time. It’s a whole new chapter of life for us and I am ready for everything that comes with it…. but you just watch me blubber like a baby when I drop him off on his first day!

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@danielle_symes

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