Extraordinary days

What would you do today if your day was suddenly cleared and you could do anything? There are a few rules: such as you have no money and you have to be home by 3pm. But within those rules…..ANYTHING!

I’ve got 4 kids and I’ve known this week was coming. A week of respite. My youngest 2 are at a holiday day programme each day, my daughter is off at a week-long camp, which leaves my 14-year-old son and his mate from up North loitering around the house. They occasionally come upstairs to eat, deliver a one-word sentence and flex their gains of the day.

This week kind of feels like what I imagined my youngest turning 5 would be like. Days to myself to do what I wanted or needed to do. Ordinary days that would give me room to breathe. School didn’t work out for my 5-year-old and I admit, I had grief at the loss of those quieter days when I transitioned to homeschooling him.

This week feels like five consecutive extraordinary days.

Day one report.

I cleared the floor and vacuumed with passion. No one interrupted me. It was about 11am when I brought home the hired rug doctor from the local convenience store - a carpet cleaning machine which is insanely noisy.

In a hotel, the cleaners are fairly quiet before 10am but once check out time has ticked over, it’s all on - they let the cleaning noise rip. Upon reflection, I think I’m paying the teenagers to stay in this ‘hotel’. Unbelieveably, they persevered even through that noise and woke at 1pm.

It was a beautiful day of being lost in my thoughts uninterrupted. My carpet looks incredible, and it is bringing me joy. This is a definite sign that I’m actually an adult.

On this extraordinary day, I did an ordinary thing, but I finished with my everyday extraordinary view as I squashed in a quick run before my 3pm deadline.

Here’s to day 2, 3, 4 and 5.