Bling and Butterflies

I’ve thrown any returning to school routines out the window (gasp), jumped in the car and joined friends and their families for some much needed holiday fun and laughter…

If you have kids you might be thinking about uniforms and school supplies, perhaps ideas for lunches and the concept of getting the little ones back into something that might resemble a school routine. Yes… getting them up at a reasonable time in the morning or if you are anything like me, making them go to bed at a reasonable time as this has become a little lax as the holidays floated by!

In Australia, we celebrate our national holiday – Australia Day – with a public holiday which falls on Tuesday (yesterday), the kids start to head back to school after a 6 week break (mine on Thursday) and our lovely little town celebrate the local Show on Friday and Saturday. It’s a very hectic time running from one event to the next!

Now as you might know, I’m a lover of routine and this includes preparing the kids as they go back to school with a normal bedtime a couple of weeks before. I also try to prepare them for what they could expect like new teachers, change in classmates and class rooms, changes the school may make to routines and finding positives in all of these.

Sounds daunting! I’m sure if you were anything like me as a kid, all these feelings were normal first day back at school jitters that were inevitable, exciting and always scary… ALWAYS!  At least you can catch up with friends you haven’t seen all holidays.

To throw a spanner into my preparations to return the kids back to school, well tuned to change and with plenty of sleep, we decide to go on a little mini holiday and plan to bring the kids home the day before school goes back!

Crazy?  Yes!   Am I the only one?  No!

Our holiday park is filled with holiday makers celebrating the last of the school holidays and the Australia Day holiday in tents, campers, cabins and caravans. My preference is power, toilet and shower all the way!  Oh my gosh… there are so many stories.

So establishing any sort of bedtime routine is pretty much impossible. Preparing their minds for change is a little less possible, which is why I started before we went on holidays but all preparation of their little minds will probably be gone now as there is too much fun and exploring to be done.

We are holidaying with our lovely friends and their children who all go to school together. So laughter is in large quantities and creating memories for both us and the kids is just wonderful.  I can think of 11 families off the top of my head from our little town who are in the holiday park!

I know I’m a lover of routine, lists and preparing, and the first to admit that I don’t always achieve what I set out to complete. I also know that I need a break from all these things too, just hard to let go sometimes.

For now, my kids and all their friends who surround them are having fun. They’re not worried about going back to school (well some might), they’re more worried about when the Mr Whippy van will arrive and if their parents will fork out money for ice cream!  Then they’re off on their bike, going for a surf, the jumping pillow, water park, swimming, board games, plaster painting, spot light… the list goes on.

I know my colour coded family will be back into it in no time and the kids will turn up to their first day back to school with a bag on their back, uniform on and food of some sort will be in their lunch box.

Enjoying some well deserved down time… me time… us time… is what is in order at this moment.  Re-energising and being good to yourself, your family and to others is just wonderful…

Bling and Butterflies xo