Learner Dad: I get ants in my pants around 11am on Saturday morning if we don't have a plan

These are the dog days of mid-February. New year, new you is long gone, helped on its way by the box of Scots Clan that somehow managed to escape the feeding frenzy at Christmas time. Spring is coming, but not yet. It’s still dark when we get up in the mornings, and by 6pm at night. The kids start “why do we have to get up for school every morning?” by Tuesday, and it goes downhill after that.

There is only thing that keeps us all going — the weekend. It’s all we talk about in our place now. Our five-year-old — Numbers Boy — starts announcing the number of sleeps to Friday some time around Sunday afternoon. As I’m putting the same boring lunches in the same boring lunchboxes every dark weekday morning, I dream about a little sleep-in on Saturday morning, maybe we’ll have pancakes again, with Nutella.