Probably like many of you, I was eagerly counting down the days, hours, minutes before school started back for Miss Five last week.
With my toddler already back at day-care, I’d been dreaming about the freedom I’d have (to do my work and housework, that is) for weeks; I was looking forward to finding my focus – that I think I left at a beach up north somewhere – and getting the family back into some sort of loose structure.
But life had other plans. The day I sent one very happy primary schooler off to her new classroom for 2021, my pre-schooler came down with a bug and needed his mummy, the doctor, and some R&R at home.
That’s not all, folks. The next day, the kids and I returned to the house after a quick school pick-up to a quarter of it flooded (cue emergency plumber and a whoppa insurance claim). The pipe that’d burst in the laundry obviously didn’t care that this was going to be my week. Dammit!
Isn’t that the way with parenting, though? With life actually! Just as you’re excited for something and things are seemingly settled, you’ll get a mighty-big shock back to reality with another responsibility or issue to take care of.
My experiences this week are pretty minor. Anything that isn’t a direct threat to someone’s life or health can be fixed and is not worth worrying about too much. But it’s given me a fresh perspective on resilience, perspective, expecting the unexpected, oh – and to learn how to turn off the water at the mains in a plumbing emergency!
Pamela
Editor, Tots to Teens
