Remember when the kids where little and you would arrive home and they would screech with joy and run down the hallway to leap into your arms? Doesn’t happen so much once they are teenagers.

In fact your arrival home is usually greeted by a deathly silence, and you have to go SEARCHING for the bodies. You eventually unearth one under a doona on the lounge. “How was your day?” you politely enquire, only to be greeted with “it’s COLD in here, I couldn’t get the fire going”. You track the other back to her bedroom where she’s been hibernating since she turned thirteen. “How was your day?” “Arggh” “What?” “It was OK”, “Anything interesting happen?” “Nope”.

So in my new state of temporary retirement I am determined we are going to have some serious family bonding time. It’s school holidays this week so the girls and I are home together.

It hasn’t gone well.

So far, I’ve accidentally spilled water on Hippie Child’s art assignment. It’s the second time I’ve wrecked it, the first was when I threw her bag on top of it in the car when we were transporting it between school and home. As we dried it with the hair dryer we were so busy arguing we almost left the dryer in one spot too long and narrowly avoided the whole painting self-combusting.

Meanwhile, Princess Child decided she would have a nice relaxing bubble bath to escape from her hysterical mother and sister. Shame that in my frenzy to get on top of the mountainous pile of washing, I gathered up the  clean clothes she had carefully laid out to get dressed into. As they spun happily around in the washing machine the child stormed around the house in jeans so far up her legs they now qualify as knickerbockers and a t-shirt designed for a ten-year-old. “I cannot leave the house looking like THIS!” she shouts.

But still I persist. Thanks to the wonders of modern technology I get an outfit dried so she CAN leave the house. For a family game of ten pin bowling. So help me God we will spend some quality time together if it kills me.

Well it nearly does. I put my back out.

As the children help me hobble from car to lounge they start questioning “how long before you reckon you can get another job?”, “perhaps you can talk to your old boss, she might be OK with you going back”.

It’s been three days people. THREE DAYS!

Remember when the kids where little and they cried when you left for work each day? Doesn’t happen so much when they are teenagers.