I finished work today and won’t return for 17 days (yay!) as we are heading off on our road trip to France tomorrow. I should be excited, relaxed, but I’m not. Why? Because holiday prep with kids is so different. The boys are sorted, I started early….

• New ‘holiday clothes’ bought – I still don’t know why we do this. My children look presentable most of the time, yet for holidays we want them to look photo-shoot ready
• Sandals bought
• Passport photos done – I’m sure they get more and more expensive every year. Apart from passports, what elser do people use these tiny photos for?
• Passports ordered in advance
• European Health Insurance card ordered for Boy2 – Thankfully these last a good few years so none of us will need new ones for a while. These are really important (I learned this during a fateful night in Ayia Napa many years ago. I’ll spare you the details, but believe me I’ll never regret taking the five minutes to complete the form. And now they are online!
• Drinks and snacks sorted
• Toys and activities for the road trip
• Bought new contents for my make shift first aid kit: plasters, calpol, allergy medicines
• Printed off the all-important Disneyland tickets 

It’s 1030pm, but I’m not sorted. I still need to:

• Pack holiday clothes (I only treated myself to two new items after spending a small fortune on the  boys)
• Try on said holiday clothes and pray to the holiday gods they still fit
• Download a couple of books to read
• Paint my nails
• Clean the kitchen (I hate coming back to a dirty kitchen, it just kills your holiday vibe) 
• Write a list for my mother re feeding the fish etc 

I guess even after eight years of being a mother I still haven’t admitted to myself that before the holiday ‘relaxation’ comes the stress and panic. It’s all about getting the little ones sorted before I can give myself a thought. 

Ah well, it’s all worth it. Bring on the early start!