The day I chilled out and the kids had the best holiday ever

I don’t know about you but come this time of the year I’m a little bit over trying to be the perfect mum … with perfect children.

You know the story; doing my best to be dressed and ready by the time the kids get up, making them eat a wholesome breakfast and trying everything I can to give them healthy, healthy school lunches every day. I bolt through a full day’s work in 6 hours then spend the afternoon in ‘Mum’s Taxi’!

The quest to do my best to give them the best is actually quite relentless and sadly, it’s often thankless.

Yes, my children may shout a quick thanks as they run from the car to soccer, netball or rugby training but do they really understand how 2 hours every afternoon does nothing other than elevate my stress levels?

And of course they tell me I’m awesome if I’ve managed to bake a batch of cupcakes or a caramel slice but I then spend the next few days feeling guilty for the ‘mum-inflicted’ sugar rush!

To be honest, I spend a lot of my time feeling guilty and attempting to fight the fight to keep my family ‘on track’.

‘On track’ with what you may say. ‘On track’ in terms of doing everything the way I feel it should be; minimal screen time, lots of outside time, 5 veg and 2 fruit serves each day, lots of exercise, into bed on time. You know – all those things I want us to do (and be) but we never quite achieve!

So I’ve decided that this school holidays will be the break point. The point where I give myself AND my kids a BREAK!

I’m going to introduce my children to the spontaneousness of just riding around the neighbourhood to see who’s home, the joy of setting up a blanket tent in the back garden, the fun of toasting marshmallows in our fire pit and I’m going to join them in the ‘no electronics while the sun is up’ challenge.

I’m going to ease up on the kale, pull back on the quinoa because really being a kid shouldn’t be this hard! And drumroll … I’m going to announce to the kids that white bread is back in the bread box and open for business.

Cue cheers from my ‘horrified of wholegrain’ offspring.

Goodbye bits, goodbye rye and hello soft and fluffy WHITE BREAD! Hey I’m going to be the most awesome mum on the block. By the end of the hols I’ll have a neighbourhood flock!

Yes there’ll be toast for breaky and sambos for lunch and not a bit of a bit in sight.

What I won’t be telling them though is that I’m cheating! That I’ve found a friend when it comes to winning the war on white bread.

And that friend is Wonder Smooth Wholegrain. The bread that has everything we mums want and nothing the kids don’t.

They will think that their pestering has paid off but I’ll know that while they think they are eating ‘white bread’ they’re actually getting all the goodness of wholegrain bread thanks to Wonder Smooth Wholegrain.

Awesome. And a big Win | Win.

High in Fibre, Smooth Wholegrain & No Artificial Preservatives (ticks every box for me) in a Fluffy White Bread (for the kids).

Thanks Wonder Smooth. I salute you – you clearly get what kids want and understand what mums need!

Keep the kids busy with these fun colouring-in sheets from Wonder White!

Find out more about new Wonder Smooth Wholegrain here

And for a good chuckle, check out the response when this Dad dishes up a very fancy lamb dinner …

Share your thoughts in the comments below.

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18 Comments

- - meedee said
  - 24 Jul 2021
    10:31 am
You know ….we simply have to remember that we survived and our kids will also.

- - mom94125 said
  - 03 Sep 2016
    4:34 pm
yeah it is great to chill out and the kids appreciate it. we need to give ourself a break and not be too hard on ourselves

- - Hanna Algeo said
  - 23 Aug 2016
    11:36 am
you are the perfect mum, what ever version you may be! there is no mold if they are feb, happy and healthy your fine!

- - ella12 said
  - 16 Aug 2016
    4:41 pm
All you can do is do the best you can, that is enough.

- - tessie said
  - 28 Jul 2016
    11:08 am
Wasn’t expecting the end to show that it was an advert for white bread. Great ending and I loved the ad with dad serving up a meal. It’s definitely an advert I’d enjoy watching

- - robyn_smithwick said
  - 27 Jul 2016
    7:52 pm
I keep getting error 409 come up when I make a comment. As usual I tried to recommend and it would not let me. the good thing is it lets me do it the 2nd time. lol!!!

- - robyn_smithwick said
  - 27 Jul 2016
    7:48 pm
Well done . I THINK WE ALL go through trying to be the perfect mum at some point in our lives.

- - rovermum said
  - 27 Jul 2016
    10:42 am
I’ve learnt that there’s no such thing as perfect. We do the best we can with our kids, for our kids, and by our kids. It leaves me happy knowing my hubby and I are the best parents for our child!

- - mom67623 said
  - 27 Jul 2016
    7:08 am
I remember the”perfect mum syndrome only to well” So glad you learned early enough to have time out to be. Used to try it to with sll the stress and guilt and the birthday parties where I cooked wholesome food,cake and games to play etc. On reflection best party I think did for kids was, one of their footie teams we did sausage sizzles on bbq,3 loaves white bread sausages cooked by husband ,paper serviets and lashings of tomato sauce .Got them to line up and I served on napkins,with or without sauce. get in line after finished first. Then in pool for races and diving for 5 cents etc… cake at end. was great no washing up and clean semi damp and tired kids when time to go home. Was a laugh. So keep it up mum and new whitr bread with hidden grains is an excellent creation

- - mom134803 said
  - 27 Jul 2016
    3:24 am
Yeah that’s the one thing of holidays I love so much….no rushing, no running, lazy pj-days etc. Luckily my kids LOVE seeded breads, but I bought wonder wholegrain in the past for the kids that come over the floor here and don’t like to eat brown or wholemeal bread.
My son was writing a speech about Electronic free day as a day he would like to introduce to celebrate yearly worldwide. Now that’s a good plan 🙂

- - mom101628 said
  - 26 Jul 2016
    10:58 pm
I used to love school holidays – no planned time – everything spontaneous. And the kids loved It too.

- - mossysmum said
  - 17 Jul 2016
    8:45 pm
We did so much these holidays.. after watching our 2 young children clued to technology for the first week of the holidays we decided to pack them up In our car and go camping in dubbo, about 3 hours away. At first the childrwn were sooo angry as we locked all phones, ipads and ipods in the house and drove off without them with the only technology being our old Sony camera but as we arrived at our campsite and set up the tent they slowly started helping and started easing up on the wingeing. By the end of the first night as they slept on their sleeping bags myself and my partner sat at our little campfire in silence just loving the serenity. On our finally day we sat around the campfire laughing and telling jokes and chatting about the Zoo we visited and the japanese gardens we explored and i knew in that moment that this will be a regular thing…. we are already organising where we are going next school holidays!!!

- - tania_hardman said
  - 17 Jul 2016
    12:12 am
We probably do a bit ‘too much’ during our school hols (my fault) and quite often by the Tim school goes back, we are all exhausted!. Sometimes the kids just want to ‘chill’ – I need to learn to do that too.

- - june11 said
  - 16 Jul 2016
    7:27 pm
I’ll have some peace and quiet in my house when school goes back.
Why do kids have to invent something to argue about?…or disagree on something they previously agreed with when they decided to gang up on me to keep me guessing what they really wanted on the menu for a family dinner. ggrrr

- - BellaB said
  - 16 Jul 2016
    6:21 pm
We had a very unplanned relaxed holiday – it was great.

- - mum4107 said
  - 16 Jul 2016
    7:24 am
I’ll have to look out for that bread in the supermarket. Thank you

- - mom160421 said
  - 15 Jul 2016
    8:01 pm
The best part of holidays is the sleep ins and lazing about. I’m going to miss that when school goes back next week.

- - mom70876 said
  - 15 Jul 2016
    7:34 pm
Shame this article was highlighted at the end of the school holidays. Did you manage to avoid teh electronics in the day?