School holidays tend to get romanticised. The reality is that most of us parents of school-aged kids have jobs to go to outside of parenting, and it’s an ongoing challenge to figure out how it’s all supposed to work. I’m not saying that schools shouldn’t have holidays – in fact, I think it’s kind of important – but that doesn’t change the fact that balancing it all out increasingly requires a miracle of time-based engineering.
This applies even more strongly when your kid’s teacher has some ‘suggestions’ for you at the end of term, like stuff they think you should be helping them with during the break. That’s what currently got me using my 10-minute break between sessions to look for a children’s orthotics specialist. Cheltenham seems to have one, so that’s something; at least we don’t need to traipse to the other side of town.
It seems that Kendall has been complaining of foot pain on a regular basis, which is news to me. When I asked her why she’d mentioned it repeatedly at school but never at home, she said it was because of school shoes and proceeded to make me feel bad that I hadn’t let her have the high-tops she’d wanted (despite them being against school footwear policy). Apparently, the leather lace-ups make her heels sore.
The teacher suspects that the shoes themselves aren’t the issue and has suggested that I look into podiatry. Around Melbourne, like I said, there are lots of specialists in kids’ foot problems, so that’s good. It’s just a matter of determining which of my clients I’m going to have to cancel on in order to get Kendall to a clinic. She’s currently spending a lot of time with old Mrs Jenkins next door, but I don’t want to trouble her with that, since she doesn’t have a car and is already saving me a bundle on childcare fees.
Anyway… good times with school holidays.