Half-Term Hell

Nothing says half-term like a crazy woman stomping around the house with a bin bag threatening to throw away the toys that are still all over the floor even though she’s asked for them to be picked up 50 million, kajillion times.

The woman in my house, the crazy one with a bin bag, has well and truly lost it. She looks completely unhinged. I worry about her sanity. There’s an insane glint in her eye and a stress vein popping on her forehead. It’s very unsettling. 

I don’t think I’m being unfair when I say that she’s an absolute mega bitch.

Sadly, this mega bitch is me. It’s the half-term version of Sam that I’ve come to loathe and despise. 

Half-terms are hard, I find them really difficult to manage and it takes a lot out of me.

I know I should enjoy it and I know that there are parents out there that relish the holidays. You know the ones, the parents that make you feel like a total pariah for counting down the days until normality returns. When you ask these parents how the holidays went, they appear devastated and tell you that it just wasn’t long enough. 

I hate them. They do nothing for my dwindling self-esteem

I think my problem is that I really struggle with the lack of structure that the holidays bring. Everything is topsy turvy all their clubs cease and if you want to do anything then its always super busy, really expensive or simply impossible to please three kids of different ages and interests.

I’ve discovered with parenting that I’m not a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kind of woman. I need a routine, I need structure. These are essential elements for me to be able to handle the madness of parenting three small people.

Looking after kids can be so overwhelming at times. I feel incredibly guilty when I can’t give each of them the time they need – trying to manage, this whilst still doing everything else makes my head hurt.

Half-term just accentuates this. It brings the usual chaos of life, juggling work and home life, but it adds the constant shadow of your mini-yous constantly asking for something. They’re bored, they’re tired, they’re hungry and apparently, you’re the only person that can fix it for them.

They fight and wrestle, they shout and scream. Their noise level is often cranked all the way up to eleven whether they’re happy or sad. You are the coach, the referee, and the pundit (often at the same time) it’s a mammoth task.

I just don’t know how to please all of the people all of the time. Sometimes I’m not even sure I please some of the people some of the time!

And nothing questions your abilities and your personality more than parenting. You experience the highest highs and lowest lows and sometimes, like during half-term, you create a window deep into your soul. 

There you might discover that you’ve actually become a crazy bitch, wielding a bin bag, and a hell-of-a-lot-of-empty threats!

You don’t see it coming until you’re in it and then it feels that all is lost. You’ve finally fallen off of the sanity tracks that you’ve been desperately clinging to.

All is never truly lost though. Eventually you manage to get back on those creaky, temperamental tracks . And you’ll be most pleased to know that half-term Sam aka ‘the crazy bin-bag bitch’ has successfully put the damn bin bag down (for now). 

She’s taken herself out of the circle of hell, made a cup of tea and spent an uber-cathartic half-hour writing about the madness within. She’s ready to take on the final stretch of this 2 week Easter break. 

She’s an eternal trier at least!