Little Miss Busy

You would think that now that the summer holidays have begun, and the kids have finished school, life might slow down a little. I know that I was secretly hoping to have a wee bit of time to read, and to blog, and to sip lattes, and who knows maybe I will....but it won't be this week!
 Now, don't get me wrong, there's a lot to love about this week, with plans afoot with friends and family, but right here, right now, it just seems as though I've an awful lot of hoops to jump through first. You know when you feel really overwhelmed, and there's so much to do, that you don't actually know where to start? Yeah, that...which is why I'm stalling and writing a blog post instead!
 But I thought that maybe if I wrote it all down, I'd get a better handle on things, so here it is in no particular order.

•  Prepare and host a meal for friends-About 24 adults and kids in all, but I'm keeping it real and doing a chilli. (thanks Roisin!) 
• Go to Argos to return stuff and buy more stuff for the caravilla. 
• Go to Ikea to return stuff and buy more stuff for the caravilla. 
•  Make short videos of the kids and upload them for Mad Blog Awards website. 
• Write a blog post or maybe even two.
•  Meet a good friend with our collective 9 offspring for a day in the park.
•  Organise haircuts for the 4 boys. 
•  Have a night out with a few really good friends that I haven't seen in a while ...(and don't drink too much wine because I don't have time for a hangover.)
• Get my eyebrows waxed and eyelashes tinted. (otherwise I look odd). 
• Go shopping with my mum for a 'mother of the bride' outfit- (However, as this is only Wedding Shopping Phase One, it goes without saying that no decisions or purchases will be made at the time.)
•  Prepare and host our girl's 13th birthday party - it will be afternoon tea at ours with my talented beautician cousin Olivia Mc Loughlin coming to do her nails and those of her pals. (And obviously, yours truly's as well- in fact, leopard print is being sourced AS WE SPEAK!.) Unsurprisingly, on getting wind of the cake eating and beautifying going on that day, my mum, sister in law and sister have now cleared their diaries to be here too. (Note to self- buy more scones- yes I KNOW I should make them but I DONT HAVE THE TIME!)
• Buy groceries (and wine!) for a week at the caravilla.
•  Pack vittles and clothes for seven for a week at the caravilla. 
•  Arrive at the caravilla and collapse....then drink wine, read, sip lattes and blog. 
• So there you go- my week ahead in a nutshell . How about yours? Are you hitting the ground running this week or taking a chill pill? Make me jealous- go on!

Homework for Dummies

I am so completely over primary school homework projects. Last week, when Rory arrived home with his shiny, new 'Life in the Recent Past' folder, filled with blank pages waiting to be filled, a 'helpful' subject related topic chart, and a parents' comments page, all I wanted to do was put my head straight into the freezer. Because, let's not kid ourselves, this is NOT homework for the six year olds -this is torture for the parents, pure and simple. Its time consuming, extensive, and frankly a complete pain in the arse. Gimme a worksheet, reading and spellings ANY day of the week over this shit.
Inevitably, he's I'm given a few weeks to produce the goods, but throw in a Holy Communion, a mid term break, and just everyday chaotic busyness, and what ACTUALLY happens is I pull it out of drawer the night before, and think 'Oh crap! This is due tomorrow and we've done sweet FA...time to get this show on the road. The crucial next step is the sourcing of a varied selection of pens/pencils for the parent comment form, because nothing screams 'night before' more than the amateurish faux pas of using the same blue Biro throughout. Then, its straight into 'Olden Days 101' for  Rory, covering among other things, walking to school with bare feet in the snow,  conkers, Catchy Kissy and Snakes and Ladders.
 I should probably reassure you at this point that I'm not remotely anti homework - in fact, I'm the Queen of homeworks. I spend hours of every working day overseeing, assessing and correcting 4 of them...simultaneously... while  cooking, folding washing and sometimes balancing plates on my head. I even have a smorgasbord of EXTRA homeworks up my sleeve, for when I decree that someone has too little that day or I'm simply in a 'Tiger mother' kinda mood.
 Last night, I happened to be out with a few friends for a meal, and two of us got chatting about the project homework.
'How many pages have you got filled in?'
'All of them'. She seemed surprised at the question. ' You?'
'Two'. FFS .
'Oh? Well, we included pictures of old washboards and photos of old games, but the word on the street is that X's mum actually included a recipe from a hundred year old cook book.' FFS...there's always one isn't there.
 And what of Rory? Well, he punched in a contented half hour cutting and sticking in pictures of microwaves from the Argos catalogue, and our subsequent discussion on how cooking methods have changed over the years went something like this.
 'Rory, have you any idea how people used to cook?'
'Well, I know how Stone Age people did.They took two sticks and rubbed them together and...'
 Ten minutes later and I'm losing the will to live, so I cut in with, ' That's great, but no. That was thousands of years ago, I'm thinking of the recent past, when your Nana and Granda were wee.
 'Ehhh, no. I only know Stone Age.' Let's just say it was a long night.
 But, as a final push, before school this morning, and having actually lost sleep imagining Rory's project on public display as a warning to others, I was motivated to give him a short intensive presentation covering washboards, mangles and chamber pots, with accompanying pictures included and labelled, so I have to admit that this time I'm feeling quietly confident....