Done

 When my children completed their first couple of days at school, before a weekend, they had slightly different reactions but they both had the same sensation that they were ‘done’.

My daughter had been so looking forward to school. She was desperate to learn and had some weird notion that she would go to school and come home knowing everything.

“I don’t think I’ll go back on Monday,” she said, “I didn’t learn anything. We just played.”

Being the super supportive parent I am, I just laughed at her. I might have even rolled my eyes and sarcastically said something about making the most of it because it only gets worse.

My son was less keen to start school. Not against it but also not bothered much by it. He came home from his first few days, saying nothing - a position he has maintained into adulthood (if anyone is looking to recruit a spy, he could be your man). It was only on the following Monday morning that we found out that he was also ‘done’.

“But I did school,” he said.

Even teachers feel this. Including those who love their jobs and were excited to get back. Most of us had forgotten just how tiring it is, just to go to work, never mind deal with bouncy, enthusiastic humans who are expecting you to open the tops of their heads, fill it with knowledge without them actually having to do anything. The exhaustion is compounded by the amount of furniture you, weirdly, have to move, the dust that seems to be everywhere, despite the school having really good cleaners and the technology. A teacher’s computer may suddenly not recognise them, question whether they are over 18, get double vision or only work intermittently. The interactive white board could have stopped being interactive and gained a pink stripe down the middle. Over the holidays a group of rowdy trolls have had a party in the stock cupboard and there is now no space even for a quick cry, never mind a chance of finding a glue stick or 30 whiteboard pens. The staff room is a seething mass of complex grief and other emotions because teachers have human lives and we’ve just lived through a pandemic that is now over (but it’s not over).

If your children are ‘done’ and wake up on Monday morning with a groan and a lack of will to keep doing it then at least they are in good company. The good news is that it gets better. In a  week or so there’s a routine that feels almost normal, which will last for about 5 weeks until the exhaustion catches up and everyone looks like a frazzled pigeon. 

At weekends, during school time my children often adopted the pyjama defence, where they refused to get dressed so that they couldn’t be made to go anywhere, or do anything. Today, that feels like a very good plan, as I appear to have caught a cold (honestly, Mr Williamson, no germs spread in schools) and my brain resembles a good Emmental even more than normal. It might be time to invest in a pair of pyjamas.

Nice pair of Olivia Von Halle PJs - a snip at £520

Maybe not. I promised to help build the shed. Can you build a shed in pyjamas?