The Young & The Restless | Clocking up the hours and the altitude

I am lucky in the way because of that, they spend most of their time happily at home, all of us together often.

Sometimes, however, it can feel like we’re smothering each other — everyone vying for Mum’s attention at once; Mum only has two ears, so can’t listen to three people talking at once.

If we didn’t double or triple up on time, how would there be enough surplus hours in the day to cook, clean, shower, do the laundry, run errands, taxi everyone around, work, sleep and get some me-time, too? There’s not even enough left over to do all those things, even with doubling or tripling up anyway.

But unexpectedly, I feel like we’ve recently entered an era where one-on-one time has been gifted to us incidentally through all the things their current ages and stages have them doing.

My two younger boys aren’t yet old enough to have casual employment, so they do paper rounds, which I help them with each week. People often ask me why I do it when it’s their job. There are many reasons, ranging from the obvious (regular non-negotiable exercise) to the understandable (being there so they don’t encounter undesirables on the streets alone). But more than anything, it’s the weekly hour of uninterrupted alone time I get with each of them.

My eldest often sidles up next to me while I’m cooking dinner for a chat (realistically, it’s probably more to check how far away the food is from hitting his hungry teenager’s lips). Still, he wasn’t getting a solid hour of my undivided attention each week like his brothers were until he turned 16 and got his learner’s permit in September.

I felt overwhelmed with the expectation that we would have to find 120 hours in 24 months for driving lessons so he could go for his licence as soon as he hit the eligible age.

But to be honest, with 35 hours under his belt in just six weeks, my apprehension was probably unnecessary. And many of those hours were spent in the car having one-on-one time with Mum.

Sure, we’re concentrating on the road and traffic, talking rules and regulations at perfectly timed learning moments, which all contribute to (hopefully) a nice core memory of the milestone of learning to drive with Mum.

But the craving for the other individualised time with Mum is satiated at the destinations in between when we take a break from driving.

Like in Echuca, stopping to drink a milkshake on the banks of the Campaspe before retaking the wheel to drive back home with Mum riding shotgun and little bro asleep in the back.

Like in Shepparton, stopping to browse in Kmart with Mum after opting to join her there for the first time in yonks because he knew if he did, he might get to drive her there and back.

Or like in Euroa last weekend, where he thought we were stopping for donuts — and we did — but Mum also made him hike up a big steep hill named Balmattum before the trek home.

We love gallivanting around on road trips fairly regularly anyway, but the goal of racking up more driving hours for our eager learner gives us more incentive to do it when diesel prices had been giving us less.

On that, such jacked prices for fuel do put limits on the budget at any destination, so currently, it’s day trips, not overnighters; it’s milkshakes or donuts, not whole lunches; it’s hiking up hills for free, not paying to enter overpriced tourist attractions.

So now I’m scouring maps bordering home for destinations with stunning natural attractions and quaint little corner stores full of sweet-toothed delicacies to road trip to.

Can’t wait to see where the next 35 hours take us.