This week is half term. I hate half terms. They’re not long enough to form a new routine and just long enough to destroy the old one.
I do recognise that both kids and teachers need the break (I taught long enough to know the thousand-yard stare of week-seven exhaustion). My daughter—who adores school—is usually clinging to sanity by her fingernails by the end of it. Still, I dread it.
So, in an effort to head off the inevitable meltdowns (her grandparents are away on a well-deserved holiday, leaving her stuck with me all week), I started planning a month ago.
This, of course, backfired spectacularly.
By the week before, I had so many activities planned that I couldn’t tell where she was supposed to be or when—and she kept wanting to add more. In desperation, I fed all the data into an AI.
It spat out a timetable. Yay.
It started at 9 a.m. (reasonable, since the first activity with a set time was 9:30) and ran until bedtime at 7 p.m., neatly broken into two-hour chunks with meal breaks. Brilliant.
I proudly showed it to my daughter on Saturday afternoon.
She promptly complained that it wasn’t in colour, didn’t show her uncle’s birthday, and didn’t include Grandma’s arrival.
Sigh.
I handed her a pack of felt-tip pens. She coloured it in while I added a stick figure and a birthday balloon.
She cut it out, deemed it “acceptable,” and stuck it to the door. Job done, I thought.
Until that night, when she ate dinner staring at it, lips moving silently as she checked each line. I have been less nervous during an OFSTED inspection. In fact, I think my work was scrutinised less by OFSTED than by a partially literate seven-year-old with a clipboard made of felt-tips.
Still, it passed muster and returned to the Wall of Schedules (there are seven now). I relaxed.
Until this morning, when she appeared at 8:30 a.m. — dressed, brushed, and fed — ready for the day. She dragged a chair in front of the timetable and made her father sit beside her.
And there she stayed until 9 a.m.
Because the timetable said the day started at 9.
She couldn’t possibly watch TV, colour, or pack her sports bag before 9 a.m. — because it wasn’t on the timetable.
Executive dysfunction at its finest.
I tried. I really did.
Maybe if I hide the chair?
Raising the Modern Fae 