I have been reading lots of posts this week about what you all have been up to keeping your young kids entertained over the half term. trips to the park, crafting, building dens, walking in the woods/ beach etc and I remember the days when each school holiday ‘day’ was planned to a tee!

We have never been flush with cash so it has always been keeping the kids entertained on a budget. We have done the beach days, picnics in or out depending on weather, friends for tea, meeting up at the park and so on.

But my boys are now teenagers! This brings a whole new way of looking at things. They are no longer ‘excited’ to go to a park or a walk in the woods or picnics or God forbid ‘crafting’! Those days are long gone and I can mourn for those all I want but it wont bring them back. I have to now embrace the teenage style holidays which in itself is another kind of torture.

So to prepare some of you for the years to come…..

Ways to know you are a mum to teenagers on holidays

* Your eldest is the one who makes your morning coffee

* Your teens of a certain age will stay up later than you can manage most evenings

* Your weekly food shop will  only last 3 days if your lucky

* The smell that hits you as you ‘take your life in your own hands’ to enter their rooms to check if they are still alive will knock you on your back and haunt your memory forever

* By the end of the day you have no idea how many extra bodies will be sleeping in your house

* Your life will totally depend on whether you let the bottles of Coke run dry!

* It doesn’t matter what you plan it will be met with a grunt- if your lucky

* Your expectation of any gratitude for feeding their friends, providing a free taxi service and having a ‘magic wallet’ full of money is no longer on your radar

* You become less of the organiser and more of the ‘payer’ when it comes to any arrangements

* You get immense joy from the fact you have secretly managed to get their bedding off, washed, dried and put back on while they were out and didn’t notice

There are many, many more but I will save those little gems for later. I used to let this worry me but not any longer. After talking to lots of mums I realise this is the world of the ‘teenager’ so it’s not something I have done wrong- it’s just LIFE!