tick tock...

...is the sound of my biological clock but more importantly the sound of the end of the holidays fast approaching. I'm not so concerned right now about my biological clock, except perhaps that as it ticks the wrinkles find themselves more permanently attached to the corners of my eyes. No. I'm more worried about the fact that now bank holiday has been and gone I have this sort of pit in my stomach that reminds me increasingly regularly that Monday marks a new term, a new academic year, a new career opportunity for me, my kids growing taller and gaining Norf Larndan Aa-tit-tood, innit?, the onset of wrinkles, sorry I mean Winter (have you noticed the colder air...?), another 15 weeks chasing our tails and living for Friday nights and getting blue (hopefully not because we're hypathermic) on Sunday afternoons.
Having spoken to a few Mum-friends I have been having conversations along the lines of "thank goodness its nearly over" and "god I can't wait for them to get back to school" and "I think they're bored of being at home" and "I'm going nuts" and "I'm sick of spending all day clearing up after them" and "I think teachers should be paid more money" and "teachers must be insane" and you get the message. I can see their point. The house is no longer the ordered peaceful haven it was 6 weeks ago. The dirt is prolific. The mess is giant sized. But for all the endless clearing up after them and the repetitive conversations "what are we doing today? who with? where? are we going now? can I watch TV? Actually, can I watch a DVD instead? I don't like peas. I don't need the loo. I have brushed my teeth. I haven't brushed my hair. I forgot to wash my face. Do we have to go to Sainsbury's again? Where are my shoes? Can A/B/C come and play? Can we go to the soft play centre? I still don't like peas..." I have had a splendiferous time this holidays with Liz & Mol.
After 2years of the girls apparently completely hating each other - fighting and shouting and hitting and pushing each other down the stairs and under passing taxis, or where Liz simply was too baby-blob like to play - this holidays has finally seen them come-together as relatively good play-partners. OK they still occasionally hit/push/shout but they have developed one or two games which keep them going for hours: teachers (Mol patronizes Liz for 2hours); Nursery (Mol patronizes Liz for another two hours); doctors (Liz sticks cellotape on Mol's arms and legs and inserts a plastic spoon in her ears/nose/throat); princesses (complicated network of silk scarves draped over the bunk-bed which turns into a sort of innocent - I think - harem where they then pose and drape themselves in elegant princess like fashion whilst listening to Classic FM). Which is really nice. And then I get to prune the over grown plants in my tiny patch of shit-filled-garden and make fairy cakes for my little doctors/princesses/teacher-girls.
Harmony.
So I am in fact not looking forward to them going back to their institutions where the under-paid teachers in their over-filled class-rooms try to teach them numbers and letters. I am going to miss the chaos. I am going to miss their daft questions about totally random unrelated things. And I am going to miss not having to worry about what time it is in the morning... tick tock brrrrrrrrrrrrrrring. UG!