The trouble with ...

.... Project Life is twofold .

Firstly the term 'Project' must surely strike a chord of abject fear in the heart of any mum with school age children.

That seemingly harmless slip of photocopied A4 paper that comes home, crumpled in the bottom of the school bag, with a headline that begins with the dreaded phrase .... " This term we will be studying The Tudors / The Rainforest / Metaphysics and Brain Surgery in the Nuclear Age  " ( delete as applicable ) . Weeks of misery stretch ahead as the deadline looms and the expected 30 page treatise complete with index , bibliography and copious illustrations ( no cut and paste allowed ) takes shape or rather doesn't , until the day before it's due to be handed in.

Competitive Mums will have done the homework. Intricately researched , glossily illustrated and bursting with interactive elements and pop-up pages to 'give it that edge' , their projects have been lovingly compiled , the children's input being completely eclipsed.

Slummy Mummys will have left it to their kids. A handful of hastily cut and paste, heavily plagiarised, disjointed , scrappy sheets will have been shoved in a floppy plastic wallet.

Middle ground Mums will have attempted to encourage their kids to pull out the dust laden encyclopaedia rather than hit the internet. They'll have nagged them weekly , made them do their own research and somehow been able to cobble together a respectable effort which will have a meticulously coloured-in title that may have taken longer to complete than the entire project.

Either way it's a lose-lose situation.

And then there's the second part of the term Project Life ... 'Life' .

Am I the only one that leads a humdrum kind of existence , interspersed with periods of hideous melodrama, mess and mayhem ? I never seem to be having " The Best Holiday Ever " or the " Perfect Time " or events that " Rock " . Every now and then I have a half decent holiday and the odd day that doesn't end in weary resignation . I'd like to see some Project Life cards that read " Where's the Bottle ? " or "Could Have Been a Bit Better" or maybe even " Thank God that's Over " .

I can't keep up with the American superlatives that dominate the happy clappy world of Project Lifers. This may be why my collection of " Best Day Ever " 3x4 cards are still in the box.

Any takers ?