Well, today, finally I have reached the nirvana for which I have been longing for oooh, about ten years... Yup, my youngest child has finally made it into full time education, and I have my life back. Wooohooo!!!!!
Now don't get me wrong, I adore my offspring and there have even been moments that I've enjoyed since I set off in this parenting malarkey all that time ago, but having had four so close together, there was a long long time when I had NO time to myself at all. And when I felt I was living an awful kind of Groundhog Day existence where I was condemned to repeat the pattern of having a baby who turned into a toddler, and then producing another baby... This time two years ago I was at my wits end and couldn't see the light at the end of the tunnel. And now, suddenly, miraculously I am here.
No 4 actually started school last week, but as I have had to pick her up at lunchtimes, it hasn't felt so very different. Today is my first full day of freedom. Oh boy oh boy.
So what, am I going to do?
Well...... the house is reasonably tidy as I have been attacking it every morning, but my plan starting from next week is to go through every room really thoroughly and chuck out anything we don't need, and clean everything from top to bottom...
I also intend to do some more training. Huzzah.
And of course I shall now have lots more opportunity to work... So my next novel might actually get finished in a year (at least that is what my longsuffering and loyal agent is evidently hoping!).
I can't actually envisage being any less busy then I am at the moment. But the glorious thing is that I can actually have some time uncluttered by children and their needs and demands, so maybe I will be a little less maniacal in the evening.
Hmm... and maybe pigs will fly.
The last week has been punctuated with huge rows and bust ups as the sprogs get back into routine and no 4 who is overtired irritates the hell out of them all.
Hopefully she will be so knackered by the end of a full day she will be too dazed to keep it up...
I have to confess I didn't shed so much as a tear when she walked through the door. She is happy to go and more then ready for it, I can enjoy some well earned free time, and maybe for the first time in ten years start to feel that I am on top of things on the domestic front.
Whether I shall feel so sanguine next year when no 1 heads off to secondary school remains to be seen... at the moment the thought of sending her into the big wide world on her own is giving me the heebie jeebies, but I guess I have to bite the bullet some time. And she too is more then ready for it. I watched her swimming lengths the other day on her own, which is a huge improvement for a child who used to be terrified of the water. She confidently headed off to the deep end, while I less confidently watched as she swam round other people and I angsted about her suddenly losing it and dropping like a stone to the bottom. I was even more stressed by watching her try to touch the bottom of the deep end, though I know that's what I used to do at her age, with no one watching. And in my day it was 12ft 6 in the deep end as opposed to 3ft now. She couldn't understand my concern at all, and thought I was an overanxious parent. I probably am, but I suppose it's the nature of the job.
Still, for now, she's just about under my control, and all my children are at school in the same place. So for the first time since I've been doing the school run I can go to and fro in peace.
It's been a long time a coming.
And boy am I going to enjoy it....
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