How long are the School Holidays?

Insert exasperated sigh!  For my children's school the answer is 49 days but it feels like 149 to me!  I love my kids and they are great - not particularly challenging in their behaviours or unusually demanding and all healthy - for which I am grateful.  But I am obviously not cut out for this part of the parenting calendar.  I miss my routines.  I miss my friends.  I miss 'MY' time.  Meanwhile, my husband is back to work - long hours, travel, the whole shebang and I just get plain lonely without adult company to keep me stimulated.  When I catch up with my BFF's and their kids they are just as distracted and challenged as me and the exchange does not really provide the relief that it usually does.  I can even complain about taking my middle child to the beach for surf lessons 4 days in a row … (please don't slap me!)

My diet and exercise is shot.  I have put on 2kgs last time I looked, but maybe it is more by now.  I have lost my motivation to move.  I am trying to keep my PT appointments but dragging 3 kids to my gym is not very practical.  Trust me I tried it this week, and it all would have been just bearable till 2 other women turn up with their kids.  Vision is not the kind that has the facilities to entertain them.  Actually my other gym has facilities but my kids have ceased to be cooperative about going there since they were about 4.

I am literally thinking it would be easier to work FT!  At least I would have some kind of routine and I would have some adult company in a non-child friendly environment!  But who am I kidding!  By the time I found a suitable job that justified the disruption to all of our lives and paid for the childcare I would be kicking myself for ever having considered doing it and piling myself high with guilt and shame for not handling it better and for not realising how good I had it in my full-time SAHM life.

I feel ridicuous complaining really.  Maybe I am over-reacting, but my feelings are valid for me aren't they?  Bring on the school year.  Stay posted to hear me complain about:

• rushing to get out the door in the morning
• all of my children's extracurricular activities
• school gate politics
• the shortness of the school day
• lost pieces of uniform
• not knowing what food to pack for the kids each day
• etc.