Back in 2003 as we were handed a screaming newborn, life felt like it would never be the same again – and how true that was.

Fast forward to 2006 and 2007 and yet more chaos was added to our lives.

For seven years it felt that being a mum to little boys was the hardest thing in the world. Fast forward again to September 2014 and the aforementioned screaming newborn has finished at primary school and has been thrust in a testosterone-fuelled all-male environment as the smallest fish in the pond. Early starts, mountains of homework and what feels like an entire lifestyle change and I’m beginning to realise that parenting a baby is quite frankly a breeze – albeit a sleep-deprived breeze.

No one ever said that trying to hold down a job involving a one-hour commute each way while managing three children and a husband was going to be easy, but just recently it feels like it has become an almost impossible task.

Having an 11-year-old who is completely dazed at the change of school and the pace that this brings would be hard on it’s own. I am having daily pep talks with him trying to explain that life will get a bit easier (even though I know that this is actually a lie); encouraging, without nagging him, to get cracking on the homework, which involves me sitting by his side in an attempt to keep him focused. I’ve learnt so much: the geography of northern Norway, the major events of 1969 and maths which I don’t remember ever being taught.

All this while he stresses about not making new friends and the fact that he’s shorter than most of the boys in his year and is convinced he’s never going to grow and that he hasn’t got any hair on his arms...

Meanwhile eight-y-o son is having a slight crisis of confidence and is also needing to take things up a gear.

His passion for football now involves twice weekly training sessions and a degree of knowledge that I just don’t have of the current Chelsea FC bench.

When he came home from school last week with homework to produce a talk on a place he has been, rather than spend the hours this usually takes working with him while he pores over a PowerPoint presentation, I’m embarrassed to say that my instructions to him were to leave it to me.

A quicker, much more painless solution, even if it does defeat the object of learning. Twenty minutes later, with a talk about Bigbury-on-Sea compiled, we have been working on learning it word for word. I guess I missed a trick; perhaps he should have written it about northern Norway.

Six-y-o son seems to be the easiest at this precise moment in time.

He has a new teacher whom he worships because ‘she’s so pretty’.

Right now I haven’t got the energy to explain why from a feminist point of view his criteria leave so much to be desired. He’s a smiler who charms his way through life as everyone’s friend, and that makes me proud at least. It’s a shame they don’t do a GCSE in cuteness because at least we’d score an A in that one.

By the time I get to work and I’ve made breakfast/packed lunches, walked the dog, prepared the dinner of something resembling casserole in a slow cooker, unloaded/reloaded the dishwasher and washing machine, signed a tree’s worth of letters sent home from school, I’m rather glad of the hour drive to Oxford through the really helpful roadworks. ‘Make the most of every moment’ is the advice given to me.

Oh the irony. The trouble is there just aren’t enough ‘moments’ in the day. Anyone who has pre-school children, a bit of sleep-deprivation is not as bad as you think.

Wait until life is running by at 100mph with children going in different directions and it will seem a walk in the park.

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