I have a girlfriend who has children who are all a bit younger than mine. I'm kind of her touchstone for the hope that one day her children will be able to dress and feed themselves independently, eventually.
It's been seven years of me sprinting out of bed every morning to ensure everyone is fed and watered but these holidays I laid down the law. Things were to change at Chez Seraphim.
This morning I cheerily told her how much I was loving the school holidays.
"Why?" she enquired.
"Because I am getting to laze in bed every morning and read the paper. It's brilliant!"
There was a long pause at the other end of the phone line.
"How? I mean seriously, how?" she asked her voice rising several pitches.
"Well," I backtracked, "technically I don't get to sleep in, Mr Small comes into us at about 5am each morning to cuddle up with me and rearrange my internal organs by kicking them. But after that...."
"What happens after that?"
"The kittens start miowing at 6.30 so Mr Small gets up and lets them out of the laundry. Then they race in and start wrestling each other on the bed. Then husband's alarm goes off and he gets up and then Miss Medium and Mr Large come into to snuggle with me," I said happily.
Another long pause
"How is that lazing exactly?"
Clearly this conversation wasn't going the way I'd hoped.
"Well" I hedged "I'm still IN bed so that's a plus right?"
"So what happens next?" she asked.
"Well the kids go and get their cereal themselves!" I said triumphantly. At last I was getting somewhere. Here was a concrete example of my offspring being independent.
"And what do you do?" she enquired.
"Well I get up and let the kittens outside and I get the paper to read in bed. Only one of the kids has usually spilt their cereal by then so I have to clean that up and by then I need to make my own breakfast....." I trailed off.
There was a long silence down the other end of the phone.
I could hear my friend trying to figure out how best to point out that my innate sense of optimism was clouding an inarguable truth.
"Well maybe by next holidays they'll be better at it" she said kindly "and you'll get to, you know, laze in bed."
Let's hope so.