We know how busy it is around this time of year with children heading back to school.
Uniforms, new shoes, books, Frozen themed school bags, the list goes on. Once that’s all sorted there’s the lunchbox issue. A shiver runs down my spine as I think back to the fiascos that all children experienced going back to school at one stage or another.
Brace yourself, nightmares and flashbacks incoming…
The soggy ham sandwich. The lunchbox opens and you almost burst out crying. Almost. But you don’t because you would literally never live that down. The white bread looks like it’s crying though and the thinnest slice of greyish ham ever peeks out from between the slices. Two choices here: hold nose and scoff OR scrunch up the so-called sandwich into tin foil to make it look like it was gone. Toughest decision of the day.
Uniform shopping. This is without a doubt, one of the most stressful situations a parent and child can find themselves in. Tantrums (by both parent and child), tears (again, by both) and distressed shop assistants are almost a guarantee on this dreaded excursion.
So many books.Trying to convince your mum to please please please not wrap the school books in the Christmas wrapping paper this year again. She’s not convinced and it takes three nights, 16 paper cuts and yet more tears to get all the books covered.
The banana. Crushed into the side of the bag. Maths book ruined, pencil case destroyed. Plus, you smell and people are looking at you and you’re pretending to look around and discover the mysterious smell too. The stress.
It’s your first day. You are ready. Looks like the one shoulder bag trend is done so you are ready to rock the two shoulder look. So ready. And then you spend so much time getting ready that you miss the bus. You roll up to school on your first day in your Dads oldest work van with the family dog licking your face and hang your head in shame.
Finally, the drive home. The same questions EVERY SINGLE DAY: ‘Well, how was school today?’ ‘Did you eat your lunch?’ ‘What did you learn?’ ‘I hope your uniform wasn’t in that state all day?’ ‘Why is there a smell of banana?’
But hey, they still were ‘the best days of our lives’!!
