Last week it felt like every day had some kind of deeper meaning attached to it. My personal favourite was International Women’s Day. I got to gawp at the achievements of trailblazing women, but the best thing about the day, if I’m totally honest, was that the men at work bought all the women cake.

Hot on the heels of all this cake came Happiness Day. An email from school explained that this day would be celebrated by allowing the children to wear a colour to represent their mood, rather than uniform. A helpful mood chart was included with various bright colours on it.

I decided not to show my kids the chart. They could wear something colourful from their wardrobe. Easy peasy. What overburdened mum doesn’t love a themed day that requires no preparation?

Then Son1 saw the mood poster and decided (at 9.30pm the night before) that he wanted to wear purple.

“But you don’t have ANYTHING purple in your wardrobe,” I protested.

He looked at me like I had two heads. “Purple means creative Mum!” Determination flashed in his eyes.

“Yes,” I replied, trying to remain patient. “You are very creative, that’s true. But …” I continued through gritted teeth, “you don’t have anything purple!”

There was no changing his mind, so we ended up looking through both mine and DH’s wardrobe, hunting for purple attire long past bedtime.

Son1 in my yoga pants

Son1 sorted, I then had Son2 to deal with. “Mum, I want to wear purple,” he told me in no uncertain terms.

“Noooo. You can’t,” I said immediately. For the love of God.

“Why not?”

“Because, you have nothing purple!”

“Why not?”

Let’s just say I wasn’t feeling very charitable or creative by now – how on earth were you meant to relish Happiness Day when the initiative was causing such discord and mutiny among my kids?

“Alright Mum,” Son2 eventually conceded. “I’ll wear my red T-shirt.”

“Great,” I sighed with relief. It was what I’d suggested more than an hour before, and now they could finally get to bed. “Red is a very happy colour,” I said brightly.

Son2 practically bared his teeth at me. He too glared in my direction as if I’d sprouted a second head, and had told him the red t-shirt was covered in poo.

“Red is not for happiness,” he huffed. “It’s for ANGER!”

Happiness Day could surely only get better … (and just for the record was followed by Enterprise Day at school and St Patrick’s Day).

“Seems there’s a day for everything now,” commented my mum, who’s staying with us and from a generation that didn’t have daily vision statements force fed to them with their cornflakes. “Do they do any real work at school?”