Half-Term Parenting… Expectation Versus Reality…

So parent people.

Half-term is upon us… 

It began so wonderfully… the hopes, the dreams, the aspirations… I’d missed her. So much. I couldn’t wait to spend every second of a whole week with my 5 and 2 year olds… it was going to be so beautiful…

And then by Wednesday I’d begun to develop a tick, my house looked liked a squat and if anyone asked me for another snack I was likely to have some kind of Pom-Bear-sponsored fit. With gin.

So here is my guide to Half Term Expectations versus Reality… (mainly written this for myself to look back on and remember to stock up on more Pom Bears and Gin for Easter…)

Expectation: Long walks, fun days out at the farm and family pub lunches where everyone laughs, eats off their own plates and talks about their day.

Reality: By day three you’ve given in to Maccy D’s drive-thru and a ‘movie day’ after a brutal character visit at a local farm which left you slightly altered as a person. You alternate with KFC for variety. On Friday you went for Nandos because you were feeling ‘posh’. But the children cried because there was lettuce and you got drive-thru on the way back…

Expectation: Healthy balanced meals. This week you’re really going to work on the toddlers ‘sausage-game’ and stand tough until the 5-yr old voluntarily eats a piece of red pepper. YOU ARE STRONG. YOU CAN DO THIS. 

Reality: You bribe them with chocolate buttons until they’re quiet and get dressed. So you can go on Facebook. And get them into the car without dislocating a rib due to excessive toddler-wrestling… Later on you made them eat a raw carrot each. You feel better now.

Expectation: You’ll spend the week OFF your smart phone. Who needs social media and the internet anyway right?? Not you… this’ll be easy!

Reality: You begin sneaking Facebook breaks whilst going to the loo… you feel dirty. But you can’t help yourself. But soon realise the biggest flaw in your plan is that your entire bastard Facebook feed is full of bastard parenting stuff… you spend the next hour unfollowing everything under the pretence of having a long poo while the kids form themselves into a human battering ram outside the door… Then, later that night you have a small midlife crisis (*may or may not have been related to an excessive amount of wine) (*it was), and succumb to Facebook advertising by spending £50 on a bottle of shampoo. And about £4k on ASOS on ‘slogan based clothing’ in a size too small for ‘motivation’… The next day the ASOS stuff arrives and you realise everything is tiny and made of shiny unforgiving material. You cry. And have some more cake. Before realising you can’t return any of it because the toddler has just used most of it to wipe his nose/lunch on… and possibly pissed on a bralette… Maybe you’ll just put it in the wardrobe and pretend it never happened… Yeah…

Expectation: We’ll stay at home and do crafts… I saw this thing on Pinterest using toilet rolls and paint and glue and sparkly stuff. I can’t see any way that wouldn’t work out or destroy my life/home/hopes for the future…

Reality: They find the glitter. And destroy your life/home/hopes for the future.

Expectation: We can bake things! Let’s make cakes.

Reality: After you have a little weep whilst cleaning the kitchen for four hours, they eat all the cakes. And use their sugar-highs to overthrow you and become their own tribe of small angry naked cake people who rebel against life by standing on the sofa, punching nearby animals and wearing their shoes on the wrong feet…

Expectation: We’ll host a few play dates!

Reality: We fucking won’t.

Expectation: Softplay! We’ll go to the nice one where you don’t stick to things and they have healthy lunch options, branded coffee and all the staff are nice…

Reality: After driving around for four hours to find a parking space with 3-miles of the entrance you abandon your car in a field, strap the small one onto your back and hike your way there while everyone cries. When you get there it’s ‘one in, one out’ and you’ve just realised you’ve left the snack bag in the car and the baby wipes packet is empty… as soon as you make it in, the small one produces an epic thunder-turd whilst you are trying to swim to them in the ball pit… praying there’s no leakage… when lunch arrives everyone cries because there’s actual vegetables, there’s no seats left and they’ve RUN OUT OF MOTHER-CHUFFING FRUIT-SHOOTS… so really you should have just gone to scabby softplay down the road, been grunted at by teenagers, ordered chips, eaten a Twix Duo on a dubiously-sticky sofa and watched as the kids had an absolute ball… even if they do come back with scabes and may have spotted an epic thunder-turd in the ball pit.

The end.

#winenow