summer holidays

The Thing About Summer Holidays

/ annamurray / Leave a comment

Dear parents of before,

I get it now. I’m sorry.

That is all. Except my remorseful self needs to vent and explain.

When I was a kid, I was quiet. Like, really quiet. The sort of quiet that always gets “She’s really quiet” and “When will you come out of your shell” comments. Holidays for me meant as much staying in my room and reading as possible. I remember getting all enthusiastic about violin practice, and would sometimes set a goal of learning a particular work over the holidays. I didn’t fight much with my brothers because I wasn’t interacting with them. We would usually go away somewhere for a week or so, which meant I just had a different place to read a book. There would be a day of stationery shopping and then the delight of covering books without any bubbles in the contact. In short, I don’t remember there being much happening that my parents had to be involved with and it was all pretty quiet.

Fast forward to being an adult and hearing the moaning about school holidays. Moaning about school holidays which would come hot on the heels of moaning about school terms and busyness. I was one of those child-free adults who wondered, don’t you like your kids? Isn’t it nice to have them around more and not having to worry about lunches and drop-offs and friendship struggles and homework and assignments and teachers and events and sports? Why do you complain about all those things when they’re on and then complain about the absence of all those things when they’re not? 

Fast forward some more to the summer just before C started school, where we screamed at each other I think every day in January. Only near the very end did I realise she was nervous about school, even though she was saying she was really excited. Once she’d started school, her summer holidays had a bit more sister time, as work is mostly suspended for me so I reduced the daycare days for E and S. It was stressful having them all around more because of the fighting and the bickering and the constant need to make sure they are active enough so that they don’t fight so much and so that they will sleep. Hahahahaha.

Fast forward to this summer. Deep breaths. It’s been a challenge. Thankfully, one for which I was marginally more prepared and financially better able to cope. That is a factor not at all to be underestimated. Money can’t buy you love, but it can buy craft supplies, and that’s priceless. This has been a summer that has brought me inspiration in the form of a desire to write a handbook for summer. Yes, mostly so that I can do better next time and also, crucially, have more skills for the following summer when S will be about to start school.

There were two main elements for this summer for us. One was that I felt I actually had to get ready for school. The other was all the up-in-the-air-ness and not-usual-ness and change of the situation of having E finishing daycare and starting school.

Getting ready for school didn’t mean just going stationery shopping and covering books. In fact, the school made that rather easy by having a supply levy for prep-2 and by sending a booklist for year 3 for us to do online ordering and then it was delivered and I had to stick name stickers (ordered last year) on and that was it. Other things that weren’t so obvious but necessary were things like actually delivering the stationery supplies to the school last week. Buying proper school shoes. Wearing in said school shoes. Practising wearing the uniform and hat. Haircuts. Getting a lower railing for the wardrobe so that uniforms can hang there and be accessible by girls. Reminding them of drop-off and pickup routines. Packing lunches – I mean, starting weeks ago – for lunchbox practice and also what on earth will E eat at school?! Baking. Trying new products to see if they work or don’t work for lunchboxes. Paying all the dancing fees. Practising morning routines and hairstyles. Naming all E’s things and all C’s new things.

Although a lot more involved than what I remembered from being a kid, that bit was easy. It had to be done. It was done. Yes, I was sticking name labels on lunch containers after 10pm Monday, but it was all done. My To Do List was nicely filled with green ticks.

Then there was the other side. The other side that had me going ohhhhh I get it now. The side that is dealing with two personalities. It’s not so much the two people thing, but two conflicting personalities. Needs quiet. Likes loud. Can sit on her bunk and imagine things for hours on end. Will lie on her bunk and delight in annoying her sister by pushing her toes up against the upper mattress. The side that is dealing with the emotions of however many children are at home and everything that is in the moment and therefore crucially important as well as everything that is to come and all the worries and fears and insecurities that brings. The side that feels the guilt for letting girls be on screens for hours on end so that I can do some work and earn some money. 

The side that, as the home parent, means no break not at all no none. This mental image of lazy summer days just is not true for the parent at home with the kids, the one doing all the upfront parenting. This might be possible in a few years but it decidedly is not the case just yet. And this miss, that expectation of relaxation and the possibility of doing other things that is then not realised, is so incredibly frustrating. Like watching the Relaxation Train go by. I really desperately want to be on it, and yet… there it goes, chugging away while I cradle a child on my lap to calm her after a sister fight or to talk through the what-ifs of school or as I work on what do I actually need to do this year in order for our family to function and try to declutter which also I can’t do because even though I want this immensely and our family needs this immensely I can’t seem to get to do it because children either play with what I’m trying to sort through or they kick off with yet another fight.

The side that is so draining that I am a blob at the end of each day, the “end” of each day really meaning when all three girls are all finally asleep, so sometimes 8.30, sometimes 10.30. So draining that I can’t muster energy to contact the people I love, the grownups and the support network who reach out even when they get nothing back. So draining that I can’t organise playdates or catchups or anything that will probably actually help the whole situation. So draining that the end of the day becomes precious, as I am determined to do something for me every evening, even if that means staying up past 11 cutting out bits of felt or material while watching snippets of a show that doesn’t require concentration on a plot line, sacrificing sleep for some insistence that I am still me and still deserve something for me.

I get it now, parents. I get it.

What We Read This Week (25/01/2026)

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This has been an emotional week. It started with the big, big emotions of when will this holiday ever end will I ever get back to school and the nerves of E as she faces a big wall of unknown that is actually fairly recognisable and familiar but it still carries the weight of new and different. Not to mention that there were a couple of things that we had said we would do but could not do due to illness. I was screamed at a lot for that. As I suspected, though, a lot of E’s big emotions were from the unknown and it being a long time since prep transition days. Thursday, we had a big day of playing at the park then having hair cuts (E has a fringe now!) and buying proper school shoes then dropping off C’s school supplies and showing daddy E’s classroom. E’s teacher spotted her and we had a chat and then there was more park play where we met a classmate of E’s and then S pickup and E actually fell asleep at a normal sort of time without getting physically violent with me. Phew.

There have been a few books that have helped with all this emotional weight. The usuals. Children’s Bible Stories. Ruby Red Shoes. A new frequent pick for E is Maisy Goes to the Cinema, which I find ok but it is not my favourite. It feels like what is probably a Peppa Pig episode but with different animals. One that is very flat and two-dimensional and has the underlying purpose of “Let’s tell children what to expect when they go to the cinema”. Nothing at all like the Bluey episode called Movies with all its humour and relatability and parenting.

A recent library pick for E was two Claris in Paris books. I had pointed these out to at least one girl while book shopping in Kmart a while ago and was met with glazed eyes. I did not press it. Now, though, these are up there with favourite books. They have even been placed on our bookshelves instead of in the library book pile so I see a furtive library trip in my future. One of the books borrowed is a hide and seek book, as my girls call them. As it turns out, my girls love this style of book, which is a fantastic calming tool for them. The other is more of a mystery book with a missing Fabergé egg. And beautiful colours. And acts of selfless kindness. Beautiful.

C has been reading her way through the library’s animal chapter books. Anything by Holly Webb is snaffled by her, as well as a series called Zoe’s Rescue Zoo. All girls have still been enjoying Miss Rita, Mystery Reader and C is still devouring Good Night Stories for Rebel Girls. That one has prompted many conversations about all sorts of things. Cue random questions at random times resulting in me swallowing a few times and wondering what is actually age-appropriate for dealing with topics like totalitarian regimes and occupations of a military kind and how do people recover from diarrhoea and how long does it take to recover from any sickness and how to stop wars forever. Goodness.

School’s Back!

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Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh

Bye, darling girl! I love you! Have a wonderful day!

School is back, and holidays are done. Holidays that went better than last summer and better than feared but still … still had that feeling of gritted teeth. We’re getting through it. How much longer now? Grr.

Morning walking. Walking for physical health but also to find some space in the day, to carve it out for myself, to have the morning sun in my eyes, to breathe fresh air and not have to answer five questions fired at me from multiple sources all at once every ten seconds. Walking because looking after me in this way helps me reset and look after everybody else. 

Taking myself to the bedroom for a break so that I don’t explode. Breathe. Be interrupted during that minute – that one tiny minute of 60 seconds – because sometimes girls can’t even last that long or I have left my breathing space mental break cool down time too late and then I am rushing back out to nurse the injured child or to remind girls of something like we don’t hurt others to get our own way or that sometimes it’s okay to let others do their thing and let me deal with them.

Two girls going to daycare two days a week. The pre-holiday financial stress of knowing there may be zero income to cover this but also the holiday family stress of having three girls together for all the other days so balancing it out to be two days a week of daycare and then five long and tricky days where they’re all together. The relief – such relief! – when I actually was allocated work for every single day that they were at daycare and I could work and earn just that little bit of money that meant that I didn’t have to use up my entire savings to get through the holidays.

Having that little bit of money meant having freedom to buy girls things like an ice cream on a day out, or buy sushi for them for lunch, or buy craft supplies, or buy replacement sandals when one child just stepped into a pond and when I hauled her out immediately there was only one sandal on one foot and the other was lost at the bottom of a pond and there were so many tears but she didn’t have to go home barefoot. Money that meant I could buy C black school shoes, which are not essential for this school but still a nice thing that she asked for and I knew it would help her feel Proper. Buying school shoes and realising that school socks will be better than her multicoloured rainbow unicorn socks so being able to say yes to school socks. I know this doesn’t sound like much but if you’ve been there, you know. Money that meant I could take her to the uniform shop when it opened last week and buy her uniforms, all secondhand, but not stressing that if there was nothing in her size secondhand then I would be buying new. 

Big Days Out. People hearing about these massive outings and saying how amazing I am but me knowing inside that this is just because I am so far from amazing that this is the only way I can keep girls from fighting with each other all day because when they are out they are so beautifully behaved and just seem to get on better. Big Days Out that wear them out but it’s still a balancing act of Big and not so Big that they are actually worn out and get sick from exhaustion then have to stay home from playgrounds and daycare and then we implode.

Big Days Out this summer that included the trip to Bluey’s World and the day at the City Botanic Gardens playground and the trip to my brother and sister-in-law’s new place on Boxing Day where we also saw my parents and my sister-in-law’s parents and brother and it was a huge day that had girls falling asleep on the way home. There was a Big Day Out to the shopping centre to beat the heat and have girls playing in the shopping centre play areas for three or four hours. There was a mummy-daughter shopping trip that was promising to be a wonderful pre-Christmas shopping trip but ended prematurely when the heat and the sunlight and the people and the noise and the noise and the noise and the noise caused poor C to be so overwhelmed she was nearly vomiting. 

There was mummy cooking more. This makes me happy but also oh my goodness the stress of trying to prep dinner just before taking girls outside when it is shady enough but they are definitely at the point of the day when they need to be outside it is real, this stress, and I finally worked out the need to prep dinner way, way earlier, like at lunchtime sort of earlier and then we managed to have maybe three nights at the end of the holidays where it was not so stressful. 

Baking, both together and partially together and managing to do some on my own as girls were doing their own thing. Relishing this together time while also simultaneously finding the stress of having girls fight over the ladder and the step stool and whose turn it is to tip or stir or taste and that moment when you realise you need an ingredient which requires you to leave the preparation area because you don’t have extendable arms so there will be at least one child unsupervised next to uncontained ingredients and stove knobs.

Craft. Not as much as there could be because the mess is a big factor. Also not as much as there could be because then once they have finished gluing coloured pasta shapes to cardboard or gluing cotton wool to a plastic bottle with fairy lights inside it or making glass jars into tea light holders (actually those are quite lovely) then we have all those things in our place needing places to live because of course they cannot ever be thrown away or repurposed. They are Special. 

There were regular trips to the library. I had neglected it somewhat because I feel libraries are a place of calm, for order, for quiet, and this is all the things my girls are not. Plus the lack of cooperation when I say it’s time to go meant it was a very stressful place and experience for me. However, the last few months I gave it another go and it is such a hit. The children’s area with its pretend cafe and its wall games and big armchairs and ‘doctor computer’. New and colourful and attractive and enticing books. Row upon row of chapter books for C. Indoor drinking fountains. The rituals of borrowing books and returning books.

“Hey Siri, play rock and roll music.” “Hey. Siri. Play … STOP! HEY. SIRI!!!!! PLAY. ROCK. AND ROLL. MU. SIC.” As it turns out, I have three rocking rock chicks. Especially E. They love Kiss and Queen and ABBA. All girls can now activate Siri on the HomePod. They are expert at requesting movie soundtracks and have been practising other options like Mamma Mia and I Was Made For Loving You Baby and Rock And Roll All Night. The HomePod is now unplugged as turn taking took a dive and there are only so many times I can listen to children shouting at Siri and then listening to We Will Rock You (much as I love it).

New indoor climbing equipment and balloons and outside time with balloons and scooter and tricycle and ride-on car and playing mermaids and jumping in the massive swimming pool puddle that forms when it rains a lot and the mud oh my goodness the mud that I have had to clean up because when it’s available it is the most favourite thing for the girls ever in their lives.

Even though this feels like it is over, it’s also not really over. All these things will still happen, will still be happening, for the next little while. Weekends still exist. Sick days still happen. We just have all the added extras of school and lunches and activities and girls not having to be in each other’s faces most of the time. 

Annnnd breathe.