So here I am day 4 and the kids are having a lie-in. No alarm clock had to be set, no lunch boxes have to be prepared, no uniform needs ironing and I don’t need to scream raise my voice at my children to eat their Coco Pops in a given time limit. If it wasn’t for our new puppy, I could still be in the land of nod myself, but he decided to exercise his whimpering technique at 6.30am this morning!

I still feel like I am recovering from the last week of school as each day brought another slip of paper in the kid’s book bags requesting either party clothes for one day, a board game for another, or a plate of party food for the last day. And each afternoon I collected them, I was presented with a folder of work, PE bag, spare jumpers, etc, so while I looked like a pit pony struggling out of the playground with my many bags, the weary looking teachers seemed relieved to get the chance to finally clear out their classrooms.

My eldest is in the Juniors and every year they have a party in the classroom on the last day of school. Last year was his first year and as I scanned the 18th piece of paper that I had received that week, I read “please provide your child with a plate of party food for Friday”, so I naturally assumed, in my lack of attention paid method of reading, that each child brought a different kind of food for ‘the party’. So I cooked up 30 sausage rolls, wrapped them in foil and placed them in a Tupperware container for eldest son to take in for his last day.

That afternoon when he came out, he wasn’t happy. He thrust the half empty box of sausage rolls at me relaying the information, “the teachers asked for each child to bring in their OWN plate of party food as we are not allowed to share food, so everyone had a plate with sausage rolls, crisps, party rings and cupcakes and I was the ONLY one who had a container full of sausage rolls!” Ooops! I apologised and he was good-natured about it telling me how he tried to eat as many sausage rolls as he could while he looked on at his friends with their more exciting platters of treats. So this year I read the slip of paper properly and made sure he had a good selection of food. I do try really hard to not be that parent who sends their child in on non-uniform day in their uniform but you need an Executive PA sometimes to deal with the amount of paperwork that is sent home. However, I don’t wish to complain too much as it does mean that the children have fun at school in the last week.

The last week of school also means school reports. My 3 brought home very good reports with only a few minor moans, eldest sons untidy handwriting and youngest daughters lack of enthusiasm but on the whole no complaints and apparently I have focused, well behaved children.

However, it was my youngest son’s report that made for good reading. As you will know from previous blogs, my youngest son can be a bit of a live wire, is often described as “a character” by people, as he is a very energetic child, quite cheeky, very adventurous, has quite bad selective hearing and will do anything to get a laugh! Well, I did expect his report to contain words such as “easily distracted” and “has trouble listening”, but no, his report was outstanding. I read it, then checked the name on the front was right, then read it again. “He excels in every subject, is very helpful and often helps other children when they are struggling, gets involved in every activity, listens to instructions and is very popular with his friendship group” and my favourite line, “he has built up strong friendships with the other children and adults in the class”. I was half expecting a teacher to call round to see if he wanted to ‘play out’. But we were overjoyed, very proud and very grateful of his teacher’s kind comments. There have been occasions over the last week where I have to refer to the report to make sure we are talking about the same child, but I have faith he is good in spite of his sometimes ‘characteristic behaviour’!