The night(mare) before school reopens

How awesome is it that the kids are finally back in school?? Very, very, very, very, very much so. Was that too many very’s? Are you kidding? If anything, it’s too few. Let’s throw in a couple more very’s in there.

I typically try not to delight in their misery but when their level of misery is directly proportionate to my level of delight, I shall allow myself a discreet but very celebratory victory dance in the bathroom. Which I did several times and there may or may not have been some involuntary whooping. The kids were like “what are you doing inside, mom??” and I had to be all “oh um nothing, everything’s fine, carry on.”

Every school holidays, I feel like I’ve aged 3 years and at this rate, I’ll be 70 by the time Hayley gets to primary 1.

But you know what’s the worst part about school holidays? The last night before they have to go back to school. Specifically, 30 minutes before bedtime on this dreaded night.

Okay, let me back up a bit. I’m not a noob at this parental torture called school holidays. I know how this goes so at the start of every holidays, I’ll get the kids to take out all their homework and finish it up. Week 1 is always all about the homework and there will be no fun activities until everything is done. I usually spend this week asking them repeatedly to check and double check any and all homework requirements because I will not have any surprises on the night before school starts.

They assured me that it was all done so weeks 2, 3, and 4 were all about having fun. They went to Sentosa, went for camps, went to the museum, went to the playground, went swimming, went to Sentosa again two more times, went to more playgrounds, it was glorious.

Furthermore, we were blessed with an extra public holiday called Hari Raya Puasa two days ago, so I gave myself a headstart and started nagging at them to pack their bags and do a final check of their homework on Sunday afternoon. With that done, we spent our bonus public holiday having fun rock climbing, and all was well until bedtime that night.

I delivered a final instruction to make sure everything was packed and ready for school the next day, and it was at this most auspicious moment that Truett discovered he had 3 copies of 新朋友 magazine undone, plus his completed chinese essay had gone missing.

I legit burst an artery at this point.

It’s scientifically proven that 30 minutes before bedtime on this night is when the gates of homework hell opens up and unleashes the spirits of uncompleted assignments upon you. Work that has been done will mysteriously disappear and formerly nonexistent homework will suddenly come haunt you with their cold, undead fingers. To vanquish this great evil requires a very advanced level of tiger mom powers and sadly, I’m not quite levelled up enough.

Let’s just say that this particular night was filled with much unspeakable pain and gnashing of teeth.

Thankfully, that ordeal is now over and to make up for the suffering, I shall gaze upon this photo of of their joyful school holiday exploits to remind myself of happier times.