I can hear them as I write this. The loud raucous giggles. The constant thumps as they jump about downstairs. The deliberate attempt to slowly undermine my sanity with their alternating wails of hunger and boredom.

If I can just hold on a little longer. If I can just ignore the cries of victimisation that will inevitably arise when one of them claims I am favouring the other two, because I haven't put as much jam on their toast.

If only I can last a few more days, peace will soon be at hand, because the Easter break is coming to an end and tranquillity will return. Well... at least for six glorious hours a day.

And what's with this term, break?

It may be a break for the children and it may be a break for the teachers. But it certainly isn't a break for me.

More like a broken, as in broken quiet, broken concentration, and broken bones if they don't SHUT UP down there (just kidding... Constable).

No, it is certainly not a break for the parents who must now take on the roll of leisure consultants.

"Why don't you draw a picture?"

"Boring."

"Why don't you go play a game?"

"Boring."

"Why don't you take a flying l..."

Forget that last one. Knowing my three, they probably would ('Cool... come on guys, daddy said we can go and jump off the roof').

Then there's the local Play Scheme initiative.

Someone there must be numerically dysfunctional, because even if you ruled out Good Friday and Bank Holiday Monday, there are still eight weekdays that the kids are off school.

Yet some scheming schemer at Play Scheme, only thought to provide morning respite for four of those days.

And not just any four days, but the first four. The ones where we were still relatively refreshed and prepared to handle the onslaught that was to follow.

The ones where we didn't really mind spending our entire day trapped in the kitchen - feeding one child after another, only to have the first loop back into the queue before we've had a chance to do anything more substantial than unpack the dishwasher.

I guess I simply have to face the reality that as the home-bound parent, I'm not really a parent.

That's merely a glorified title designed to booster my ego and fill my heart with fluttery feelings - so that I won't follow the more natural impulse and bolt off in despair.

The depressing truth is that I am simply a feeding and cleaning machine who is also programmed to occasionally intervene in the name of safety and morality.

I'm not here to instill values and create a solid foundation for the future. But rather, to clean up spills and insure that the value of our house doesn't plummet in the future, when an errant boy tries to undermine our foundations with a plastic shovel.

And it's not as if there are lots of other activities to fill our day during this so-called break, because everything else comes to a halt.

This means that there are no Brownies, Beavers or swimming lessons.

Nothing but empty days of torment stretching before me during the one time when it wouldn't feel as if I were cramming more events, into an already overcrowded schedule, than was healthy.

A void that has one insidious purpose, because it has been cleverly created by an evil government to undermine my well-being. To make me snap and begin to chant: "Teachers are great and wonderful. Teachers have a noble task. Teachers don't get paid enough. I will do anything they ask."

Anything, that is, to insure that they will let my children back into school next week.

When their break is over, and mine finally begins.