Jo's Blog

In my previous life pre 30 years old I was a primary school teacher. It was a great job which I loved most of the time. I've missed lots of things about teaching; school concerts, plays, Year 6 trips, the trip to the pub after work on a Friday, the days when you can't believe you are being paid to have fun with 30 children. I haven't missed SATS, report writing, parents' evening, wet break or lunch duty. I have, unsurprisingly, also missed the holiays. That is, bizarrely, til this year.

As soon as you have pre school children the summer holidays become something we dread rather than embrace. Everywhere is more crowded: Tesco, the park, the car parks, the beach, the roads, the swimming pool. Plus you have to run the gauntlet of teenagers at the playground. My policy is to ignore, engage them in conversation or to just avoid the playground when they are around. I don't have enough energy for a confrontation along the lines of 'can't you find somewhere else to hang around and talk about boyfriends so that my two little ones can go on the slide?'. After all, they have to find somewhere to lurk and I know when I have teenagers of my own I won't want them lurking around at home all the time. I'll be positively chasing them out the door to go and terrorise some preschoolers.

So after the bank holiday I'm hoping things will return to normal a bit more and I can relish the thrill of being the only parent in the park at 9am giving my twins the freedom of the big slide without worrying.

Follow up:

Yesterday we went to the big slide in our local town and the twins were beautifully behaved and happy to play amongst the much older kids. In fact the older ones just quietly stepped over my two and let them get on with it, it worked fairly well. But then I faced the trauma that is 'getting everyone back to the car'. I gave them fair warning we were leaving, I then let them have another 'last time' on the slide, then we started to leave. I told them what I expected them to do, I told them what bribes I was prepared to give if they did it and we set off across the park, me praying quietly that we could get to the car without incident. Will was gently screaming by this time, he is too little to bribe with ice cream, so I wanted to move reasonably quickly. Unfortunately two little people with inquisitive minds and hands don't move reasonably quickly through a park. When will I learn this? I always think I can hurry toddlers to move at my pace, I am wrong.

Well the end result was a certain wilful little girl running away from me. She chose the wrong day to that. I bounded up the steps after her, caught her and tucked her firmly under my arm and ignored all the screaming that followed. I then pushed the pram with one hand, kept Kitty tucked under the other arm and enticed Patrick to follow with a constant commentary of how well he was behaving. Everyone looked, I didn't care. We made it back to the car without further incident and I felt that I had achieved victory, for once! Needless to say Kitty hasn't stopped talking about the fact that I carried her because she ran away. I'm hoping it will stop her doing it again. Who am I kidding?

So this morning it is pouring with rain and we are off to toddler group. Will my two win the battle of the pink car (the most favoured toy at toddlers) or will it be the older ones who triumph? After all, it is the school holidays so toddlers will be full of older siblings. How many days to go til they go back to school?