The week after a holiday is always a bit of a comedown, isn’t it?!  Mounds of washing, back to work and feeling like you’ve never been away at all after a few days!

Monday:

I went back to work, but had to take Mia with me as we got back so late the night before that I hadn’t even thought about childcare options!  Luckily it was still school holidays so still very quiet for me!  However the “bag of tricks” I had packed for her lasted about half an hour before she decided that the office was way more exciting and wandered around bothering the rest of my colleagues!  They said they didn’t mind…but so would I even if I did!

Tuesday:

Mia has had to change dance schools as they had switched the day for her age group and the new day doesn’t suit us, so we went to a new place for some taster sessions.  When I asked her what she wanted to do, she replied “Everything!”, which is a typical Mia response!  We narrowed it down slightly and signed up for tasters in Cheer and Pom, Jazz and Acro.  Ballet was on Thursday.  It was a lovely, new studio and we saw quite a lot of people that we knew there, including a little girl from Mia’s Kindy class, so they danced together.  Cheer and Pom was too difficult for her at this stage (in my opinion, ask Mia and she was an expert!) and Acro was too similar to gymnastics, which she already does, so Jazz was the winner from today.

I had started covering and labelling Mia’s books and equipment for school a few weeks previously when it was new and exciting.  Then I had got bored and had been putting it off ever since!  The amount of time it takes is ridiculous!  Mia had chosen stickyback plastic (Aussies call it “contact”, another vocabulary lesson learnt the hard way, but still not as embarrassing as either the stockings/tights, thongs/g-string/flip-flops, spunk/spoof conversations!  I’ll save those for another time!) rather than covers because she wanted My Little Pony and Num-Noms, but I will not be doing that again!  At least I can say I did it once!

Her school had sent step-by-step instructions of how they wanted the books to look and they wanted a cover, then a front cover and then clear “contact” over the top!  Over the top seemed a very apt phrase!  Firstly, we don’t buy school books in England, the school provides them for you, so when I got an invoice for almost $200 worth of books and stationery for her Prep year, I nearly fell off my metaphorical perch!  Let alone the labelling of EVERY SINGLE crayon, pen, pencil, pastel, glue stick et al that she was going to use!  I had bought the named stickers to make it easier, but the instructions said I had to put clear “contact” over the top of that to make them extra secure!

I got better at it as I went along, but still lost the will to live after a while and put it off for another day…

Wednesday:

Mia went to play at Dani’s house so I could go to work alone today!  I sorted out some schedules for the year, but as the schools didn’t go back until the following week, most of them didn’t want to see or hear from me until the students were back.  Then, you know they will all want me at the same time!  Such is life!

Thursday:

Today was our ballet taster and she did such a lovely job!  I asked her to just choose one class this year as I was envisaging school to be a shock to her system and was expecting her to pick Jazz, as she’s just a bouncy, lively, jazz-hands kind of girl, but she went for the ballet!  It just shows that you never really know what they’re thinking!

We celebrated by going for cake at the café next door (not that I had earnt it, but I was there in a supportive role!)

I had to go and drop off Mia’s books to her classroom the next day and had still not finished labelling everything!  I did an hour and then got bored again and said I would get up early the next day…

Friday:

…Why do I always lie to myself and say I will get up early the next day when I clearly won’t?!  I legitimised my staying in bed by telling myself that it was my last lie-in for 10 weeks of term, so I deserved it!  It didn’t help my book situation though and I had to take in half of her books and promise the rest by Monday!  Off to a great start!

On the plus side, it was “new hair” day!  Oh how I love getting a fresh colour to disguise my horrific roots and oh how I love my daughter taking a photo of me mid-transformation so that I look like a troll!  Exhibit A: because I should embrace the hard work which goes into making me look half-decent:

Beside every “after” pic, there should be a “during” pic just to keep things real!  Hardly anybody “just woke up like this!”  They have filters and lighting and a hair and make up team too most probably!  Yes, some people are genetically blessed, but the majority of us aren’t and it takes time and money and talented Beauticians and Hairdressers to get me to what I would deem “photo-ready!”  But then again, we are all our own worst critics, aren’t we?!  My daughter will say “Mummy, you look beautiful!” and I will start to disagree with her and then catch myself because I don’t want to put that self-critical voice in her head!  Isn’t it most important that she thinks I’m beautiful, rather than the rest of the world anyway?  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, as they say, and we are definitely each other’s biggest fans!  God, this has turned soppy!

Let’s ruin the empowering mood by recounting a drunken night at Sophie’s house!  We hadn’t had a catch-up for this group of friends for a while and thought we had better fit one in before school started!  Sophie cooked while the rest of us drank and then we all drank too much!  We got into some deep and meaningful conversations and then decided to play pool, not that we could really even see the balls at that point (well, I speak for myself!)  It was all getting a little messy…

Saturday:

I woke up in Sophie’s spare room in last night’s clothes and a full face of make up, not entirely remembering how I got there!  Needless to say, I didn’t make it to parkrun!  I tried to get my bag to get my car keys, but couldn’t find it anywhere!  I finally spied it on a chair outside, but the sliding doors were locked, so I couldn’t get to it!  Sophie’s dogs had also run to the door to be let out, so I tried to explain the situation to them…I decided I was in no fit state to drive home even if I did have my car keys and went back to bed for an hour.

I heard a noise, so shot out of bed, but couldn’t see anyone.  I went back to the sliding doors on the off-chance that they had magically unlocked since the last time I tried them.  The dogs ran with me.  I apologised to the dogs and went back to bed for another hour.  To be honest, the sleep probably did me good!

Third time lucky: Sophie was up and let me out!  Thanked her for a great night and drove home.  Then went back to my bed!  Why does your own bed always feel better than a foreign one when you’re hung over?!

We had promised to go bowling with friends in the afternoon and it seriously took all my energy to get us dressed and there.  Mia had a great time with her friends.  I probably stank of booze (“eau de next day!”) but had a good time too, although we were talking about school on Monday and I was getting increasingly nervous!

Sunday:

When we dropped the books off to school on Friday, the teacher had given us a little envelope to open the night before school and some “magic” to sprinkle under the pillow.  We also read a “First Day at School” book and I got so choked up!  Mia was going to a different school to all of her Kindy friends but wasn’t really showing any signs of nerves yet.  I, on the other hand, was a nervous wreck!

I finally finished labelling all of her things and went to bed, so I could toss and turn all night and worry about every possible scenario.  Because that’s a Mum’s job, right?!?!