Five Ways to Tackle the Summer Holidays.

Image courtesy soapbox.com

We're all knackered before we've hardly begun.  The end is not yet in sight and we really dearly want to enjoy our children, not fear this frazzled time, don't we?

I am no expert, but have put together some ideas that I think help address all this time off together. I only think about them, don't necessarily always practise them and would love your own practical approaches slung right back at me:

1)  Make packed lunches the night before.  It's not that bad with your music playing, a glass of something splendid and in the peace that comes with it being 9pm before you get the chance. If you're super duper organized you can make a start when tea is cooking.  Either way, it will take a quarter of the time it could take in the morning while the children are bored / fighting while you try and get seemingly everything else in the world sorted in order to be able to leave the house.  It reduces the ordeal.

2)  On-line shopping.  I suggest heavy nutrient intake during the day - lots of fruit and salad stuff for snacks and in said packed lunches.  Shove 'em at 'em all you can so you can be lazy in the evening, picking up chips on the way home or bunging a pizza or something else from the freezer in the oven without fretting about them not having had their Five A Day.  This requires stocking up and the combination of supermarkets and Summer Holidays are a melee, not given to provoking the same feelings of virtuosity.  This also gives you more time for 3).

3)  Put them to bed as clean as possible.  You don't have to change their beds so often and lots of bubble bath in the paddling pool isn't out of the question.  Anything that keeps you sane and preserves your energy is acceptable, especially when it's fun.  And the earlier the better (*fantasy*), naturally, because the garden won't water itself and you've got 1) and 4) to be getting on with.

4)  If the weather is truly fine, there's nothing wrong with hanging the washing on the line overnight.  It will still dry and, again, getting out of the house in the morning will be easier - ish, or, instead, if necessary, it will also give you time to prepare something sensible ahead for dinner and get it in the oven with the timer on.  Should you manage this, you can spend all day relaxing / tweeting about having been able to elevate yourself to hero status and we will all applaud.

If the weather is not so fine, tumble dryers really will come into their own, should you actually allow yourself to use them!  Ditto slow cookers.

5)  Don't worry too much about blogging.  We're all stressed stretched and we will feel guilty about not getting around to reading your words of wisdom instantaneously and then, worse, we might perhaps feel obliged or under pressure to write something ourselves.  Unless, of course, you're being paid to write a post, obvs.  Something has got to fund the tea / coffee / cold drinks / ice cream / glasses of something splendid that keep you going.  And we don't mind so much about not getting around to reading those right away!

Do let me know your handy survival suggestions.   Make me feel less of a #badmother and I'll see you on the other side, if not before!