School’s (almost) out for summer!

Tuesday 26th June 

School’s (almost) out for summer! 

It’s that time of year. If you’ve got children in school already then you know what I’m talking about. If your cherub is just finishing their first year then you’ve got at least another 6 to go in primary school. And for those of you with little ‘uns, you’ve got all this fu to come. Some mummy’s love it, some mummy’s hate it. Some mummy’s probably feel a wee bit of love and hate. Its almost the summer holidays and that means Its the day the trays get emptied in school and all of your little darling’s precious work from the whole year arrives home. Now, as delightful as this is, seeing the wonderful progress they’ve made since August, it’s another pile of paper that mummy’s need to find a place for. Because you can’t dump it can you?! It’s precious memories! But where the hell do you put it?! 

The best bit of advice I’m going to give you now is to ask your child to “tell me about your picture darling.” As a parent and a teacher, this is a phrase and facial expression that I’ve been practising for a few years now. 

What you really want to say is “what in God’s name is that?” That’s actually being pretty polite. 

Missy arrives home with her paper folder (containing approximately 3000 tonne of paper) which she’s managed to rip on the bus therefore the hundreds of papers are falling out here there and everywhere leaving a trail, which in case she ever got lost would really be very useful, but unfortunately she’s just coming to my room to show me, and I now have papers strewn all the way from my front door and all the way up the stairs. 

So proud of her work she starts to show me some of it. Most things are of course unfinished because Missy is incapable of sitting on her arse for more than about 0.25 milliseconds, so this was expected. The “my first day in P1” picture. Awwwww, how sweet. And it is, except I can’t help but think it resembles a jellyfish with a clump of seaweed floating about in the sea (maybe she was a jellyfish in a past life and she’s getting mixed up?) Or maybe it was at this stage she did not realise that we, humans, have necks and bodies and not just a head with 4 things, which I assume to be her arms and legs, sticking out straight from the chin. She also appears to have no mouth which is most definitely not a clear representation of my darling child. Assuming she had nothing else for a body, she’d most defiantly still have a mouth enabling to talk ALL THE TIME and ask those all important questions. “But why?”  I also have absolutely no idea what the other objects in the picture are. Maybe they’re her floating friends from her last life as a jellyfish. 

We’ve now got Santa. Although I can’t seem to piece Santa together but can see that’s he’s tried to depict some of the reindeer. The have bodies but the other floating objects don’t. I’m assuming one is Poor old St Nick. That’s one scary ass Santa. Safe to say the kids would be shitting themselves if a floating heid arived down the chimney on Christmas Eve.

Next is a colour mixing piece. Except she’s just mixed all the colours under the sun together to achieve 50 shades of shit. I think she’ll need to revisit mixing colours next year. 

And the best part about all of this you ask? Glitter. Effin' glitter It goes everywhere and it never, ever, ever disappears and I will no doubt be finding it in ear lobes and ass cracks for the rest of my life.

She’s now away out to find treasure using a treasure map that she’s also found in the folder, very nearly with jeans and a high neck jumper on, despite the rather warm temperature outside; I caught her just before she went out to change her clothes. We then got party clothes before eventually settling on shorts and tshirt. Giving me a little peace to get something dinner-like on the table. 

Which she’ll most likely not eat anyway.