Cut It Out

I’ve got a thing about labels. I don’t mean buying expensive ones as there wouldn’t be much point. My clothes could be from Dolce & Gabbana and Karen Millen, but they may just as well be from Dodgy Old Pullovers and Millets. I have no way of proving the source of any item in my wardrobe as I have a terrible phobia of scratchy, itchy, sensitive skin-enemy, hive-inducing, information-imparting… labels.

Every tag must be cut out before I can even contemplate putting a new purchase on; even those loops that help to keep clothes on hangers have to be snipped within minutes of getting them home. You recognise me now? I’m that strange woman with the hanger marks in all her shoulders. I know you laugh at me behind my puckered back but I just can’t help it. Washing instructions must be guessed at and I’ve had more than my fair share of laundry disasters. That lovely white silk blouse, which should really have gone to the dry cleaners, is now part of Baby Teeny Tiny Doll’s extensive wardrobe. I’ve ruined most things that require hand washing and please don’t get me started on grey bras and colour runs.

I sincerely hoped to avoid passing this foible onto my children but it seems the little sponges pick up things even when we don’t want them to, especially the things we have some sort of OCD about. Sharks in the sea, spiders in the bath, egg shells in the scramble. I have a friend in the UK who’ll never be able to visit me as she’s terrified of getting on a plane. Her 13-year-old daughter has never even tried. I recently took a load of excited kids to an adventure park and spent the day consoling one child who refused to go on any of the rides – even the baby ones. ‘Oh she gets that from me’ said her mum, cheerfully, when I returned the traumatised child to her at the end of the day. ‘I’m afraid of heights, speed, merry-go-rounds and water’. If she’d only told me that before, I would have understood. After all, everyone can be a bit neurotic at times. Or am I labelling again? Pass me the scissors – I need to cut it out.

Groundhog Day

Is it time to go back to school again? Where did those two months go? They slipped by in a haze of jim-jamma laziness, late nights and sleep-ins. I was full of good intentions to forcibly adjust their nocturnal body clocks, thereby easing them back into that 5.45am alarm shock, but sadly, it never happened.

With the beginning of term looming, my kids are more likely to still be wide-awake and full of beans while I’m yawning away and sloping off to sleep before them. I had meant to start chasing them up the stairs at around 8pm at least a fortnight ago in preparation, but after weeks of burning the midnight oil, they look at me now as if I’m crazy. Of course they’re not tired at 8pm. Not yet, anyway! After a week of those painfully early mornings though, they will be begging me on their jamma bended knees to tuck them into bed-ee-byes at a decent time. It’s just a shame every year that before the status quo is established once more, we have to go through all the mood-swings, tears and tantrums. And that’s usually just from me.

We get up ridiculously early here in order to get our kids into school for the 7.30am start, and for what reason? It can’t be for the purpose of avoiding the heat of the day, as us parents will wait patiently in the playground surrounded by a pool of our own sweat for at least the next couple of months. All I want is one extra hour before that dreaded alarm goes off, it’s not too much to ask, is it? Even if your kids were enrolled in a summer camp course over the holidays, and were still ruled by the alarm clock, it feels like a lie-in to get up at 7am. That’s why I love the holidays as late nights and lazy mornings are a luxury. It’s another challenge, however, to keep their brains active for the duration of the long vacation.

Many a sworn oath of mine is broken on an annual basis when it comes to keeping my broods’ brains ticking over the endless summer break. Tell me I’m not the only mother who doesn’t keep up the book reading, the handwriting practice or the mental maths repetitions. I always remember to do it towards the end of the holidays, but it’s not easy shouting out times tables when you’re fighting in the queues for schools shoes, especially as I’m embarrassingly fuzzy on the answers myself these days. (Curse those tricky sevens!) I’m sorry to say the only vaguely educational activity my kids did all summer was swap watchingHannah Montana for Horrible Histories.

Is it worth investing in those shop-bought exercise books, only for them to be found, at the end of the holiday, languishing unloved and empty at the bottom of a suitcase? Or is it better for my kids to try and beat Granny and her cronies at cards, which involves equal amounts of numerical dexterity as pages one to 76 can impart. Granny and her gang are all wicked card sharks, Scrabble and Trivial Pursuit players who hold no stock in making allowances for tender ages. Charades contains many beneficial educational qualities plus interactive skills, and there’s a whole heap of fun to be had getting Uncle Albert to act outCamp Rock in his cardie and slippers. Perhaps I should get Uncle A to test them on their seven times tables too, as he’s got a sharper memory than me, judging by his recollections of historical significance. Or maybe it’s better to just play sometimes and catch up with family and friends.

I know people in the UK who complain that their holidays are too short at just five weeks, and their kids have barely mastered the art of doing nothing before they’re whipped back to lessons again, kicking and screaming. There’s no moaning about short holidays over here though, as by the time September has rolled around our kids are so sick of slobbing around in their jammas, they can’t wait to see their friends and get back to some kind of regimented order. I feel a pang of conscience that I should have spent more time honing their skills at long division, but my girls return relaxed and rejuvenated. At least they are looking forward to finally going back to school after so long. Well, apart from those early mornings of course.