School is starting

My eldest child is four years, four months and three weeks old. The babies who were "in" our antenatal class have all started school - some of them are two months older but they are all about her age.

And this week many of them are on full days.


That's thirty hours a week.

Half days were exhausting enough - one child was too tired to play with us after her second or third week of half-days at school. She was tired and cranky and cried with disappointment. Full days mean thirty hours a week.

Today my eldest daughter slept until 10 am. I have no idea why she slept so long. She just did. If she'd been at school, I'd have had to wake her a full two hours earlier to have any hope of getting there on time. She'd have been cranky and uncooperative - she is, when she's woken up rather than allowed to wake naturally - and we'd have been late. And then, because she's tired, she'd find it harder to get to sleep in the evening and be worse the next day.

And all this just as the sun comes out during the day - we had a miserable summer - and the mornings are getting darker and the evenings are drawing in.

I am so glad we'd already made this decision because I think I'd have made it in a hurry this autumn otherwise, and wouldn't be so comfortable with it.

We're hoping to go to Oxford to a museum on Thursday. Assuming I can work out how to get there. It's cheaper than train tickets to London.