Less Than Four Weeks To Go... Aaargh!

After nine months of that lovely warm feeling directly resulting from the knowledge that lovely fiance loves me and my insane older kids enough to want to get married, it is now suddenly replaced by nerves and terror at the realisation that there are less than four weeks to go until the wedding. I still haven't found a pair of shoes I like, I haven't lost the last few pounds that would mean I can wear the delicate lace underwear rather than the magic knickers/ultimo bodysuit combo, and tomorrow I am booked in to go handbag shopping with my mother who can instantly bring me to the edge of my sanity with nothing more than a well-placed comment.

As a (dare-I-say-it) welcome diversion from all this, I have eleven-year-old son's first homework project to deal with. After his first three days at secondary school, he seems relieved that the onslaught of homework that he and his friends had hyped themselves up to expect has yet to materialise. I read his homework diary yesterday in order to sign and confirm that he'd completed all tasks set, and saw that of the two outstanding tasks one of them is for next week's English class and is to 'bring in a book or magazine'. No wonder the education system is on its knees.

The other outstanding task has now been added to my own 'to do' list. I found him on this very laptop on Friday in a savage mood because his Spanish homework (mildly impressed that he has Spanish on the curriculum) requires him to 'decorate Spanish exercise book with Spanish themed stuff', and in attempting to print vaguely Spanish pictures from the internet he realised (apparently for the first time) that our two year old printer does not print in colour. His insistence that 'everyone has a colour printer' was met by my own insistence that no they do not, and the argument reached a crescendo with his use of the below-the-belt 'Dad has got one'. At this point I am ashamed to say I degenerated into snarling fishwife mode and with my customary immaturity during these moments suggested that he do the homework at Dads' then.

As is usual after any loss of temper with elder son or daughter (less so with the small one as I seem to have more patience with children who can't yet talk) I beat myself up for the rest of the evening and tried to make up for my childish outburst and rubbish parenting skills by absurdly overcompensating with the homework assistance. This is why today I am going into town to the travel agent to pick up a couple of brochures for Spain, plus a roll of that sticky-backed plastic book cover stuff which my own mother never bought for me and which meant my French book at school was covered in kitchen clingfilm and looked absolutely rubbish next to the rest of the class's efforts. I will however restrain myself from actually cutting out and sticking the pictures on son's behalf, and will therefore still be able to kid myself that when I tick off this particular task in the homework diary it was completed by him!