Sussex parents are getting ready for the summer holidays – and our columnist is ready for a break!

While I love my children's school, I'm desperate for a break from the routine – perhaps more so than I have ever been.

A frantic work schedule this term, coupled with a lot of clubs to drop the children to and pick them up from each week, along with the daily school drop-off and pick-up, has left me feeling a bit frazzled!

Even though the summer holidays can present other challenges (not least having to bat my children off dozens of times a day when they come to ask for snacks and tell me how desperately hungry they are), it will be nice not to have so many designated places to be each day and to be able to take life at a slower pace, if we want to.

HAVE YOU READ? Ten FREE activities for you and your kids during the summer holidays in Sussex

That being said, with a holiday abroad, a holiday in this country and several day trips already planned, rest days might be a more occasional experience! But everything we have planned should be fun, fun, fun, so I don't mind that kind of running around.

Before we get to the much-coveted time off, we've had all the usual end-of-summer-term activities to manage. The children have met their new teachers, we've bought gifts for their old teachers and reports have been handed out.

And wow, did that last one bring tears to my eyes.

You put your children out into the world, hoping the world sees them as the amazing little people you know they are.

Reading the glowing terms in which their teachers have written about them, recognising their funny personality traits, praising their achievements and saying how much they’ll miss their positive contributions to classroom life is joyous.

Parenting can be hard, but hearing your tiny humans confirmed as lovely people is undoubtedly one of the highlights of being a mum or dad. And it’s bloomin’ emotional, too!

As another school chapter draws to a close, it means there is no putting off the next chapter that awaits me – packing.

I’ve got loads of mileage out of packing in this column in previous years, so I won’t bore you with all my thoughts yet again. But, safe to say, we will be taking bags packed to the rafters with ‘essentials’ for every eventuality. I’ll spent the next few weeks panicking that I’m going to forget something, waking up at 3am to add something ‘urgent’ to my packing list and my husband will spend about half an hour the day before we leave chucking a few t-shirts and shorts into a case and wondering what all the fuss is about. I don’t like to reinforce gender stereotypes, but if that isn’t classic mum vs dad pre-holiday behaviour then I don’t know what is!

MORE COLUMNS: Brighton i360: How to ride several times and get a free cocktail for almost the same price as a regular ticket

Sussex columnist on why she still loves school sports days

What else is new? Well, nothing, really. When I haven’t been taking the kids to their various social activities I feel like I’ve been constantly at children’s parties.

We’ve had a bouncy castle party (oh, the noise; oh, the shrieking), a party at Out of Bounds soft play (sweaty, ended in tears – child due to tiredness, parent due to how loud and busy it was), a party in a park (which had to be moved to a village hall due to inclement weather – don’t even get me started on how bad this summer has been), a party with a Disney princess (that was actually pretty good fun, I possibly enjoyed it more than the children), and a sleepover party (I wasn’t actually required to go, but I did have to deal with the fallout of a ridiculously tired and grumpy child the next day).

Basically, it’s been a lot, but in saying that I’m grateful for every single moment.

These watershed points in the year remind you just how quickly time goes and how short the years when your children are young.

So while I might not relish being in a room with 30-plus screaming children when it’s happening, I know one day I’ll look back on these ‘party years’ with a real fondness. Well, maybe!