Early Starts, Toast and Cries of I 'm Not Going To School, I Don't Feel Well

Today will be a busy one, not as busy as tomorrow morning, but today will definitely have it's moments.

Today is the last day of the school holidays for my childrens' school, which means that all day I will have the utmost fun of washing washing ironing and hanging up uniform. Cleaning shoes and locating PE kit, drying out trainers that I thankfully remembered to wash last night. I don't like the first days of anything. School, new job, new house, university. EEK!

I would much rather know what's expected of me, and from me, and my boys. I like a base routine to my day and new places and things to remember does not bode well for me. So I'm the irritating mum who says to other mums I see in the shop, 'What day do they start back?' and 'Which door is it for Year One?'

I know exactly what day Dylan starts back, but the week before panic sets in, and I convince myself I heard/read it wrong, and I'll look a total fool fetching Dylan back a day early or a day late, with the wrong uniform and the wrong essentials.

The first day of uni won't be as bad because if anyone looks a fool, it will be me, I'm used to looking like a total geek, with too much stationery and a massive bag of stuff I won't need. EVER. I have made a list of stuff I have to do before I start that is as long as the Labour Party manifesto (112 pages, I checked.) Politics is one of my modules. I've figured out I can log on to the student intranet, called Blackboard, over two weeks ago, and I've read through everything on my personal little part of it religiously.

You might have realised by now, I hate the unexpected, random, and unpredictable. I don't like surprises, and will only accept them from people I trust completely. I actually made myself ill in both pregnancies because I'd never experienced pregnancy before in the first instance, and because I'd never experienced birth in my second pregnancy. I badgered my poor consultant till I got what I wanted - which was a planned caesarean section.
    The first one was an emergency and I couldn't bear the thought of having Joseph naturally. So I didn't. The inpredictability of it all petrified me and made me an emotional wreck. This was all at a time in 2005 when the government and various other interfering officials were doing their level best to try and stop planned caesarean sections. 

Yes, I'm odd. Yes, I was too scared to push, not too posh! When I was pregnant with Joseph, I had all kinds of people attempting to talk me round to the idea of natural childbirth. I listened politely while clenching my teeth so as to hold the vomit back. For me, there's nothing natural about childbirth, and is, to me, one of the most terrifying and barbaric things women are expected to undertake.

Well, sorry about that. This post started in a totally different place than it went. After Dylan starts school, and Joseph, nursery, I have exactly seven days to pack my unibag no less than a million times and photocopy things I might need, but probably won't need. So total panic and the fear of all things new will reign in our house for roughly two weeks. Strangely, once I know what's happening, I'm totally fine. I get things done, and don't panic about anything, except the fact that Christmas is only 109 days away lol!