Last two weeks of the School Holidays - Yay or Nay ?

Today marks the beginning of the penultimate week of the long summer holidays.

As a home worker I have obviously been in charge of childcare for my 7 and 13 year olds during this period and the racket coming from my daughters bedroom this morning (also called the pit or as it is at the moment the X-Box/really loud home cinema room) got me thinking about how having kids here affects my work.

Obviously it's harder to organise appointments as childcare needs to be arranged - I have a back up plan (Grandma usually) but of course this makes planning essential.

There's also the aforementioned noise - although now they're older this is less of a problem. More of an issue is the constant need for stimulation required by a 7 year old - if he comes into my office once a day stating he's bored then he does it a dozen times - that's a distraction for me as I am a 'focused' worker not a 'stop and do something else whilst I entertain my child' kind of worker.

However I am going to miss them when they go back - having them around changes the vibe at home and in my office making it more like a real workplace - there's more of a hum and obviously more going on. Also it is nice occasionally to be able to bounce an idea off a real live person even if they don't necessarily 'get' what I'm discussing with them.

Lastly, as I don't have to drop any one at school at the moment I have more time in a morning to prep for the day and to be honest that hour first thing in the morning is actually one of the most precious times of the day to get into the right frame of mind for the day to come.

So kids at home - Yay on balance. That might change if their ratio of arguing to playing nicely increases markedly as it can towards the end of the holidays !