Snapshot of a woman on the cusp

I was going to call this Snapshot of a woman on the edge but that was just too melodramatic for what really comes down to wishing away the long, final days of school before the summer starts. So it’s a snapshot from the cusp instead – from one tired mother to all the tired mothers, as we let the clock run down and wait for the final whistle to blow.

What we’re eating

Anything that you can throw into the oven, ideally without chopping or peeling. Tonight it was spaghetti and chorizo and prawns because that’s what we had in the fridge. Tomorrow it might be toasted sandwiches.

What we’re  putting in lunchboxes

Before my kids started school, I couldn’t work out why parents hated making lunches so much – how hard could it be? Then they started, and I understood. The tedium. The lack of ideas. The half-eaten food. The complaints. The love-it-one-week-hate-it-the-next cycle. The realisation that I wouldn’t eat something that had been sitting in a warm lunchbox all morning either. Yesterday the small boy wanted to bake, and I suggested buns – only because if he made 12, I could put one in each lunchbox for the rest of the week, thus counting on at least one food item all of them would eat.

What we’re wearing

The kids are wearing uniform jumpers with holes in them, but now is not the time to replace them – that will come in a flurry of last-minute activity in August. (Or my husband will teach himself to sew and mend them – one of these two things will definitely happen.)

I’m wearing print trousers I got in Next that are the most comfortable item of clothing I’ve ever owned. I also enjoyed telling my youngest that I’d accidentally worn pyjamas on the school run. (I am almost sure they’re not pyjamas.)

What I’m reading

I picked up The Blamed by loveliest of lovely people Emily Hourican and I can’t wait to get stuck in, likewise No Turning Back by equally lovely Sam Blake, and Little Fires Everywhere by Celeste Ng (who I don’t know at all but assume is lovely) – they are all lined up to go into my suitcase, to a place where reading for more than twenty minutes at a time might actually happen.

What I’m listening to

The sound of my kids playing outside while I sit in the sunny garden writing this blog-post, and the dinner dishes sit undone.

What I’m drinking

Coffee, while dreaming of Aperol Spritz on an Italian campsite.

What I’m doing every day 

Laundry and holiday packing (we’re sneaking off a little early this year, shhh) and more laundry and more packing, and a little bit of emergency shopping for shorts and flip-flops, and a chunk of book 3. (20,000 words!)

How we’re doing on punctuality

Not great to be honest, but lighter traffic in the mornings is helping. I have lost all ability to get people up out of bed and out of the house on time and I’m crawling towards the finish line on the assumption that teachers understand.

They do, don’t they?

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This and the first snapshot post were based on an original linky by the wonderful blogger Awfully Chipper

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Author: Andrea Mara | Office Mum

Blogger, freelance writer, author, mother - muddling through and constantly looking for balance.

7 thoughts on “Snapshot of a woman on the cusp”

  1. Hey, that’s me! (Thank you!)
    We are done. Dun dun-dun-dun-dun, dun dun. One child officially finished last year and because the school system messed up and added a week to the end of the year when originally it had said that week would come out of spring break, summer camps already started this week so child #2 is at camp instead of at her last two days of school. That’s exactly how much we didn’t care.
    Of course, camp is just more lunches to provide, currently with the added impediment of a new orthodontic appliance making eating difficult, but at least there’s no homework. It’s a new kind of normal.
    Christine recently posted…Post-referendum brain dump. Tl;dr: Ireland trusts womenMy Profile

  2. We finish our homeschool year at the end of May….and start back in October. Sorry, I couldn’t resist sharing that with you .

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