I don't know how you guys cope with the whole big summer holiday thing that you do...

[cybele]

Because we're at the end of 2 week spring holidays here and I am ready to sell all my kids. Plus the extra two children we seem to have acquired (I recall agreeing to Lux's friend staying for a week while her mother is on a business trip, but I would love to know why Azriel's friend has been here for the past few days).

Oh, and of course it's Sunday morning, they go back to school Monday, and Lux comes up to me fifteen minutes ago and says "Mum I forgot to tell you, the sole came off one of my school shoes, I need new shoes". Because it's not like she didn't have two whole weeks to tell me this, right?

 

[mom2many]

Bwahahahaha you said Sunday morning and it confused the hell out of me! I already screwed up the days of the week once this week, I was trying to figure out where the hell my Saturday went LMBO!


I love the breaks, but now my kids are all home all the time

 

[cybele]

That's right, I come from the future.

 

[Xero]

Wow, that's such a time difference, you really are from the future! Haha

Yeah, I have definitely gotten used to my oldest being gone all day during the week. I love him to bits, but boy is it peaceful and quiet around here (to some extent - I do still have a teething 2 year old) while he's having fun at school. I will probably go crazy this summer! lol The break is almost 3 months long.

 

[cybele]

3 months is so mind boggling to me. Our summer break is 5-6 weeks. But then we have three 2 week long holidays throughout the year.

 

[pwsowner]

I think that would make more sense than the 9 or so weeks we have for summer. That's a long time to be out of school. If parents don't work with their children during the summer, the children end up forgetting some of what they learned.

Summer last year was great. My cousin needed a break, so I got to take care of her kids quite a bit that summer.

 

[Xero]

We have like a week off in November for Thanksgiving, almost 2 weeks off in December for Christmas/New Years, and almost another week off in Spring.

 

[pwsowner]

And we get 2 two week holidays on top of that long summer. 2 weeks for Christmas/New Years, and a 2 week spring break in March.

 

[cybele]

Wait, so you guys have overall less school hours? I thought it all balanced out with the term holidays but they seem similar.

 

[cybele]

Okay, I really am going to sell them, well, three of them at least, I'll keep Dita and Sasha for now.

Went to take Lux to Kmart to buy school shoes. Azriel wants to come along to print photos and Sunny want to come because she never passes up an opportunity to buy junk that she will never actually use/wear/watch/listen to.

I was officially that mother that everyone judges.

Because it's nearing the end of the school year there really isn't a huge assortment of school shoes (public schools are uniformed here so there are certain types of shoes they have to wear) she wants that mary jane style but they don't come in her size, so she's trying to wedge her feet into a kids 13, while I am standing there trying to explain that the last time she wore a kids 13, she was 8 years old.

Sunny was looking at baby stuff because the kids have a new baby cousin and Sunny is quite smitten with her. Apparently a lady in the baby section was giving Sunny dirty looks, so Sunny started talking to her stomach, so by the time I find her (with Lux in tow moping about lace up shoes) she's showing her stomach lots of different baby clothes and saying "I hope you're a girl so I can dress you up all pretty, it's okay sweetheart, we'll eventually figure out which one of my boyfriends your daddy is".
Then we go over to find Azriel, who is waiting for his 200 photos to print, because they are 4c cheaper per print if you print a minimum of 200, so he printed a whole lot "to save money". Yesterday he got his tongue pierced, so today it's swollen and he's in pain and can't eat solid food and can't close his mouth because it hurts to do so, so he is drooling. So I'm getting dirty looks because I have a drooling 17yr old who sounds like he has a speech impediment whining "I haven't had any real food in 24 hours" (plus a "pregnant" 14yr old and a 12y old moping because I won't let her buy the shoes she wants.)

Then we had to go to the supermarket and Sunny and Lux had an argument over crunchy peanut butter vs smooth peanut butter and I remembered why I only go grocery shopping on my own, or with one child. Then Azriel ate a chocolate chip cookie sample and started crying.

I love school.

 

[pwsowner]

Some of the joys of having children.
Ya just gotta love'em, right?
I like how Sunny reacted to that lady.

 

[momandmore]

I must say I also love Sunny's reaction to that lady. LMBO!!
Our summer break was crazy!! We already have a house full of kids of our own and I was on bedrest for a while. In the beginning, a little boy, relative of DH came to stay with us for a couple of weeks. I didn't mind a bit. I love kids and he seemed to be having so much fun.
We later found out that the mother of this little boy had TB, has known about it for a very long time and didn't tell anyone out of embarrassment. Not the little boy's fault at all, but I was furious for no one telling us beforehand. We immediately took all of our kids for a TB test as well as ourselves, me being pregnant, I was freaking!
Then, another little boy, also a relative of DH's came to stay for a couple of weeks. He has now been here 4 months. School started 6 weeks ago for us and I don't mind him being here at all. There are some things I do not like about he way he is treated by his parents but will not go into detail on that. So, we have basically added a kid but have no say so on his medications and things like that.
And yes... aside from the extra littles that were here, there were days I wanted to countdown to the first day of school!

 

[mom2many]

Cybele that is hysterical!

On the bright side at least all of your children's, um 'issues' will resolve themselves over night lol Well not the tongue piercing poor kids got a little while on that one

 

[Xero]

Haha!! Awesome story! xD I am dyin over here lol.

We do have a lot of time off, but don't kids graduate at a younger age over there?

 

[cybele]

17-18 is the typical age. Sunny will be 19 because she had to do grade 3 twice and she was already one of the slightly older kids in her year.

On the bright side at least all of your children's, um 'issues' will resolve themselves over night lol Well not the tongue piercing poor kids got a little while on that one

I have little pity for him at the moment, he has been talking about doing this for ages and his Dad (who also has one) told him a hundred times that if he is going to do it then to do it at the beginning of the holidays to give it time to heal. So he goes and does it on the second last day, he has school musical rehearsals today, so he's going to be expected to sing and he can barely talk.

 

[Xero]

Hm, okay well no that sounds about the same age as kids graduate around here. Well, my specific area starts kids in Kindergarten later than other places, so they will probably be graduating around 18-19 years old. I know other places start Kindergarten at an earlier age though, and will have their kids graduating at more like 17-18.

 

[cybele]

If I've got it figured out correctly, your kindergarten is our prep (or reception, depending on which state you live in), and our kindergarten is your pre-school.

Yes I realise this is pretty much irrelevant, but I am trying to wrap my head around it.

 

[Xero]

I think I have heard that. What age do yours go to what you call Kindergarten? Ours start at late 5 early 6, or in the earlier areas they start late 4 early 5. My oldest went to preschool for 2 years (it's optional here, can't imagine why though, some people don't send them, others only do one year, some people actually get them in for 3 years of preschool lol) and he was 4 for one year and 5 for the next, he started K this year at 6.

 

[cybele]

Kindergarten (pre-school) starts at 3yo and 4yo and is optional but 4yo is highly recommended. Then prep/reception (kindergarten) starts at 5 and is part of regular schooling, although I do believe it is possible to some states to skip prep and go straight into grade 1 at 6 years old, but uncommon.

 

[MamaRuthie]

haha mine has gone back today too and I spent the morning cleaning the house, its soo much messier when she is home