Dreaded SATs and escaping normality

So this week we finally got through the dreaded SATs tests. Why 11-year-olds need to go through this torture I will never know. The week went a damn site better then I imagined. I thought we would have more tears, more tantrums, a lot less conversation and all in all a stranger living in our son’s room. Well, I couldn’t be further from the truth, it seems all the worry, all the stress and all the tears happed in the fortnight before the tests. I was so relieved but still overcompensating with making conversations, checking in when he’s gone off in his room to enjoy time with his mates and monitoring his food and water intake to the nth degree. Yes, I am over the top, but I hope I hid it well.

To celebrate the end of the torturous week I decided to make breakfast for tea. If you pulled a face at that, you would understand the reaction the other half and my son had. Forehead wrinkled, eyebrows creating an arrow pointing to a scrunched-up nose. Sausages, bacon, fried eggs and waffles with beans and cheese coating the top turned the frowns upside down. See mum does sometimes know best. And no, you don’t have to have a plate full of veggies with every meal.

I did manage to squeeze a little relaxing time into the week!! I let the housework stay put, poured a cup of coffee, and curled up with a Nick Spalding book for half an hour (turned in to multiple hours but who’s counting). I love escaping into the worlds Mr Spalding creates. You can live someone’s challenge in this digital age to stay away from it or enjoy the unfortunate circumstances of someone turning their life green to keep a job.  He always makes me laugh to the point that is not good for a mum (if you know you know). I am promising myself that I will eventually finish American Psycho. The font is so damn small and when you are exhausted from your everyday life, it just feels like work.

I decided that this year on my Good Reads challenge I would read 50 books. It is important to be well read and it sets a good example to my son and may even encourage the other half to open a book from time to time. This was ambitious but I thought I could do it. What I didn’t take into account is that I was making this decision smack bang in the middle of my annual leave period. The part where work is completely off your mind and going back is too far away to start stressing about. Now I get the lovely reminders whenever I open the app… “you are 14 books behind”. Apparently shouting at an app to stop putting pressure on is not normal. Next year I will reduce my target and not set the goal when I am a normal human being!

Moving away from my lovely fictional worlds… my to-do list is mainly filled of red overdue things; Hay fever is kicking my arse and I have a niggling feeling I have forgotten something. The saying that it can’t be that important never seems to be the case for me.