The Boy has just finished his first year at school, not only am I pleased as punch that he has had such a good year but I’m preparing myself for a full-on 6 weeks holiday.

As I find myself unemployed, it falls to me to do the bulk of the childcare over the coming weeks.  Part of me is really looking forward to spending such a huge amount of quality time with The Boy. Part of me is worried. How am I going to fill 42 days straight?! The Boy is not one for playing on his own yet, everything needs my input even if it is just sitting next to him when he builds his Lego Bat cave. Will I go gaga if I have to play Snakes and Ladders 20 times in a row or watch Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs for the 100^th time? How many banana cakes can we make? What if it rains? Where does all the K-nex go?

We’re hoping to go away for a week as a family, he’s also got cousins and grand parents to visit. Apart from that we’re on our own. We’ve a few people to call upon for play dates but not as many as I was expecting after a year of school. We have a library and parks near by which I imagine will get quite a few visits.

I like to plan. Plan and organise. The Boy is very head strong though and he certainly has his own ideas. He wants to start with lunch out at Nandos!

I guess for this first long holiday I’ll have to take each day as it comes. I’ll try and get out and about each day, even if it is just to the shops for an ice lolly. For house activities there is baking which he enjoys and building with recycling. Very rarely does any cardboard or yoghurt pot make it to the recycling bin as The Boy takes it for his craft table which to most people just looks like someone has emptied a bin on a table but to The Boy it is robot/weapon/fort in the making.

I might set him some challenges perhaps building something big with the recycling, drawing his own map to the shops or writing a story. And of course there is always homework to do. We’ve been given lots of work to prepare him for year one. I don’t think we had homework at five year’s old so it is unlikely I’ll be pushing that too much. I do want him to have a really fun, memorable, six weeks as it might not happen again for a long time. But for now I have joined the ranks of the stay at home mums so I better get my act together quickly and throw myself into the next six weeks with the gusto of a five year old.