Monday morning, 7:42am, and I'm on my hands and knees under the stairs looking for Indie's other wellie. One wellie was right where it should be, by the door. The other one has gone. Nine days of half-term and somehow we've lost one wellie, a library book and every bit of routine I'd built since September.
Nursery drop-off was emotional, and not for Indie. She marched in with her bag, didn't look back and shouted 'BYE MUMMY' like she was off to Ibiza with her mates. Meanwhile the other one stood at the school gate telling me, very seriously, that a week off had 'basically made him forget how to read'. He read every cereal box in Tesco on Saturday, so I'm not panicking yet.
The house was quiet that first morning. Too quiet. I made a coffee, drank it while it was still hot (which never happens) and then stood in the kitchen wondering what to do with myself. Then I saw the washing basket and remembered. Half-term washing doesn't care how you feel.
Bonfire Night took over the week the way it always does. The other one came home on Tuesday with a firework safety worksheet and has been reading it to us at every meal since. Remember, Mummy, you never go back to a firework once it's lit. Thank you, babe. Noted. Indie mainly wants to know if the fireworks are 'loud like Daddy sneezing'. They are, Indie. They really are.
We went to the big display on Saturday night with flasks, hats, gloves and enough snacks for a small army. Within twenty minutes we'd eaten every single snack. Indie watched the first five minutes from my shoulders with her hands over her ears, grinning, then fell asleep against my coat right through the finale. The other one said 'wow' at every single rocket, and honestly that was worth the queue for the car park on its own.
Sparklers were a whole event in our garden on Sunday. Gloves on, buckets of water ready, a speech from me about holding them at arm's length that lasted longer than the sparklers did. The other one wrote his name in the air and Indie did what she insists was a 'rainbow' and was, in fact, a wobbly line. Ten out of ten from me, obviously.
Other early-November things: the heating is officially on and nobody's arguing about it anymore. The car windscreen needs scraping before the school run. The Christmas adverts have started and I've already heard 'I want that' three times before 8am. And I said 'it's getting dark so early' out loud roughly forty times this week, as is my legal right as a British mum.
The wellie turned up on Thursday, by the way. It was in the garden by the trampoline, half full of rainwater and holding one very surprised snail. Nobody knows how it got there. Nobody ever will.
So that's the week. Back to routine, smelling of bonfire smoke, and very aware that Christmas is now close enough to panic about. But on Saturday, standing in a muddy field with Indie asleep on my shoulder and the other one holding my hand and saying 'wow', I wasn't thinking about lists. I was just there. Some weeks, that's the whole win.