After years of parenting effort, I’m Quiet Quitting on Book Week

Over the years we’ve created costumes of the witch from Room on the Broom, which included a broom with cut-out characters from the book adhered (in the correct order) to its handle. There was Dr Dog, a picture book character that my youngest daughter loved, so we dutifully obliged and crafted a detailed costume for her, complete with a dog snout, stethoscope and white lab coat.

Yet perhaps our greatest feat was the volcano we handcrafted with a hula hoop, elastic, brown material sewn around the hoop for the base and sparkly red lava erupting from the top, to satisfy her non-fiction volcano phase.

Each year our kids would enter the school gates with a sense of pride and my husband, and I would look on similarly, trying to ignore the overwhelming sense of costume creating exhaustion rising inside.

Then this year came along and when I saw this term’s important dates on the school newsletter, I shuddered. ‘Book Week.’

My husband looked at me with a desperate plea in his eyes as I showed him and without saying a word, we both knew… it was over.

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With a sense of trepidation, I asked my girls: “What do you want to dress up as for Book Week this year?”

And as if they read our minds, my eldest replied, “Where’s Wally — I already have the glasses and a stripey top in my drawer.”

My youngest pointed at a costume in a Big W catalogue and said, “Blue the Raptor from Jurassic World Dominion.” And with that, our Book Week parenting efforts were slashed and finally, I was truly dreaming with my eyes open.

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