Everything I’d forgotten about the school routine

I remember hearing the argument that the summer holidays are too long for children because they forget half of what they’ve learned and then struggle to return to the routine of school life.

 

Well, what about the parents? What about my struggles? During that sweet two-month period of no school I forgot everything I’d ever learnt about how to survive the education of my children and so, here follows, a brief sample of all I forgot.

 

How to pack a lunch

 

The youngest had her first day of playschool on a Friday, my traditional day for running out of everything. That morning my confident eye faltered as it ran across the threadbare food cupboard. No cheese sticks, no tiny boxes of raisins, no fruit (aside from an apple so wrinkled it looked like the ‘before’ picture in a Botox ad). Thankfully, a desperate search on my knees through the darkest regions of the fridge uncovered one almost out of date Petit Filous, and enough iceberg lettuce to make a weird salad sandwich.

 

How to unpack a lunch

 

You have to unpack lunches straight away. I forgot. Come Sunday, I discovered the aforementioned lunchbox leaking on the sitting room floor, the cap of the sippy bottle unscrewed, orange juice swilling with the remnants of the half-eaten yoghurt and the crumbs of the uneaten sandwich. All emitting a sour and displeasing odour that anyone would recognise from fifty feet, as an overripe lunchbox.

 

Everything about Geography /History/Irish/ Grammar/most things on the curriculum

 

Mostly I forgot how much I’ve forgotten about maths. Oh maths, my ancient nemesis, reappearing now, decades later, to frustrate me while I attempt to cook dinner. I read, then re-read, explanations on the subject of sets and subsets before attempting to pass along, in a coherent fashion, over the sound of the oven and the fan and the kettle, all I have just recently learned on the topic of sets and subsets.

 

That Sunday feeling

 

You know how it is, the kids are all finally in bed and peace reigns. You sit down for your favourite Sunday programme and a glass of red wine. You take the first sip and a creeping sensation of dread slivers into your stomach. You forgot to wash the school uniform and the tumble dryer has gone on the blink. Oh, yay.