What I learned this Easter weekend

Sometimes a bank holiday weekend is the perfect tonic for taking stock of all that is good in your life and carving out some quality family time. With Good Friday and Easter Monday, creating cause to pause from the daily grind this year, I was determined to make sure we weren’t going to fritter this precious time on Minecraft marathons and chocolate-eating fests so instead made sure we had some plans to get out and about and explore.

It’s been lovely spending time together and it’s also been an opportunity to remind myself of a few things I’ve come to learn about family life. Here’s what I learned this Easter weekend.

Diary of a Minecraft prisoner

8:00am

You wake up elated because it is Sunday and you’ve given yourself an extra 90 minutes sleep. Result. The house is still so you get up to enjoy some peace and the freedom to catch a bit of BBC news before the TV is no longer under your control.

8:15am

You’re sitting comfortably on the sofa with a cup of tea and a slice of toast. You’re flicking channels because it’s not BBC news that’s on but Match of the Day. The sunshine is peeking through the curtains and you’re full of optimism. The living room door opens and the peace is disturbed but you’re happy to see his cute little smiling face and then those immortal words are uttered:

“Mummy can I play Minecraft?”

How to help a reluctant reader

It’s taken a while, but I’ve finally had to admit that I live with a reluctant reader. The signs have always been there and have included fiddling with Nerf guns during reading homework, taking excessively long pauses during reading homework, opting to watch Stampy videos instead of bedtime stories, and choosing to dress as a Clone Trooper from Star Wars for World Book Day.

It’s his teachers I feel most sorry for. Many a parent evening discussion has revolved around eager teachers desperately attempting to find out his interests in order to engage him with books. It’s not for lack of trying on their part or mine that Toby doesn’t really want to read. He just doesn’t.

10 things the Mother’s Day cards don’t acknowledge

It’s lovely that motherhood has a day to celebrate it but Hallmark platitudes don’t always get to the heart of what it is to actually be a mother.

Here’s my list of things that the chocolates and the flowers and the three shelves of pink merchandise at Tesco sometimes fail to recognise: