The opposite of what we look like on the beach
6am - The sun comes blaring in the window, springing the kids into action. I relinquish all my ideas of banning technology and reach for the iPad that I’ve strategically placed under the bed for such emergencies. The battle ensues about whether they’ll watch Peppa Pig, a creepy kid opening kinder eggs or the re-enactment of battle scenes from Star Wars by kids dressed up and wielding light sabres. I shuffle them towards another room and crawl back to bed. Oh Orange is The New Black, why did I stay up watching you until 1am?
7.30 - Square eyed from the aforementioned iPad, the kids come looking for their breakfast. “Not porridge again,” they whine.
7.45 - I dump most of the porridge in the bin and clean up the wreck that is the kitchen. Didn’t I just spend ages doing this before bed?
8am - the first snack run. ‘I’m hungry” they whine, skulking across the kitchen and peering into the fridge looking for yoghurts or cheese or anything else they can get their hands on.
9am - 1pm - Repeat the snack run pretty much every hour. What is the story with the insatiable hunger??
1pm - Lunch. I’m not hungry, mammy. I don’t want this.
1.15pm - Chuck the lunch in the bin and sweep the floor for the 275th time that day.
1.30pm - I’m hungry mammy. I want a snack.
2pm - I pack everything but the kitchen sink into the car: buckets and spades, diggers, footballs, watering cans, toy tractors, towels, swimming gear, suncream and of course snacks.
2.30pm - Arrive at the beach I finally get them dressed for swimming, aka jumping over waves and covering themselves with sand. The stuff gets into every crack, including their ears. How??
2.45pm - Shivering, they run towards me. “I’m hungry mammy”. Out come the snacks and they chow down on bananas and sandwiches covered in sand, crunching through the grit, oblivious to it.
3pm - 5pm - More splashing around, eating sand, throwing sand, rolling in sand. Repeat for the next couple of hours. We run out of snacks. It’s time to go home.
6pm: Bath. It’s time to get rid of that sand and remove the suncream from their greasy heads.
7pm: Daddy’s home, it’s time for dinner. They’re starving. “Did you not feed them all day?”
8pm : I close the curtains in the sitting room. Everyone’s exhausted but the sun is still shining outside and the neighbours’ kids are running wild on the green. “But it’s still day time mammy,” they battle on.
8.15: Cajole them into brushing their teeth, daddy tells them a story and I lie down with them in the hopes it will speed up the bedtime process.
Midnight: Wake up fully clothed and disorientated with the lights all on downstairs. Damn it. Get ready for bed and sort the kip downstairs before crawling back to bed ahead of doing the same again the following day except tomorrow it’s forecasting rain. Ahhh Irish summers with kids.
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