5 THINGS I WISH I HADN’T ATTEMPTED WITH MY CHILD THIS EASTER

I do it every holiday. You’d think I’d learn. I don’t.

On the first day of every holiday, I run around like a demented Mary Poppins. “What fun we shall have!” I shriek, as I clap my hands together and gesture towards the bounty that is ALL THE CRAFT MATERIALS IN ALL THE WORLD.

“After we have crafted our own compostable Easter outfits from recycled materials, we shall go swimming, then to the farm and then we shall eat cake!”

About twelve seconds later – and twelve seconds too late I remember I bloody hate crafting, and there’s a reason why my child gets 10/10 in every spelling test, but has never yet won (and never will win) the Easter Bonnet competition. Genetics.

“Oh holy Hell,” I exclaim, a full fourteen seconds later. “FML. How on earth did I get glitter stuck to the inside of my eyelids? Off to bed with you bastards. I don’t care if it is 9 a.m.”

I am SO sick of articles giving you 5 AMAZING THINGS YOU SHOULD DO WITH YOUR CHILD THIS EASTER (the only one I could come up with was Borstal).

Instead, I bring you

5 THINGS I WISH I HADN’T ATTEMPTED WITH MY CHILD THIS EASTER (and neither should you)

1. LEGOLAND

I mean, I don’t know what we were thinking really. We had Merlin passes from last summer, when, retrospectively, I also don’t know what we were thinking. Easter holidays were always going to be busy. We picked a day. We got there early. At least half of the rides we wanted to go on were closed. By lunchtime, having gone on a grand total of two rides, most rides had a queue of 90 minutes. I am not that patient, never mind the children. We left early.

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2. DYEING EASTER EGGS

This sounded like a brilliant idea for a playdate. Food colouring, eggs, my Instant Pot pressure cooker (I wasn’t lying when I said I used it for everything), and it was going to be SO MUCH FUN.

I mean, I couldn’t let the children touch the eggs obviously, because they would break them. And I couldn’t let them touch the food dye because they would cover themselves in it. And I certainly couldn’t let them touch the pressure cooker… So you can see exactly how much fun it was for them. For the second batch I let them stick stickers over the eggs before dyeing, to make pretty patterns. All the stickers floated off in the food dye and water and it didn’t work at all.

Despite not letting the children touch ANYTHING, somehow EldestGirl managed to get food dye all over her arms and t-shirt, meaning I got to do an exciting bonus round of laundry.

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3. GOING TO A CAFE FOR SOME CAKE

Now don’t get me wrong, the children enjoyed this very much. The problem here was my failure to budget time correctly. In my head, this was an afternoon activity that should take us seamlessly from the after-lunch period pretty much right through to when TheBloke (TM) came home.

The children chose their cakes. They were delivered to our table almost immediately. The children inhaled 70% of their cakes and declared they were full. I ate the rest of the cake. YoungestGirl commandeered the rest of my cup of tea. The whole experience took approximately eight minutes. FML.

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4. EASTER CRAFTS. ALL OF THEM.

We made prints of Easter eggs using a potato masher because it looked cool, and because I am an idiot. I am still trying to get paint out of the splashback behind the sink. And my soul. Also I have 900 near-identical pictures of Easter eggs that the children won’t let me throw away. Write in if you’d like one. Or ten.

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5. A PICNIC

As the weather got warmer, I thought we’d try a picnic. In the garden. Nothing too ambitious. I have learned my lessons.

Suffice it to say, both children refused to eat their much-begged-for cold boiled egg, making gagging noises as if I were trying to poison them. A small fly went slightly too close to YoungestGirl, meaning she threw her crisps all over EldestGirl, who then ate one of the thrown crisps, causing a full-on meltdown from YoungestGirl who wanted her partially-digested CRISP BACK.

Halfway through the picnic, they decided they would rather be a Chinese dragon instead. Obviously.

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I have discovered the joys of daytime drinking, and if you need me, I will be unconscious under a table, making strange countdown noises about term time, and thanking Imaginary God for compulsory education.