Sunday, July 8, 2012

Me time, where art thou?

It's been over a week since my last blog post and in all honesty, for the first time I've not had time. So here I am early on Sunday morning typing away whilst the wee ones and Lord Vader are blissfully asleep.

So yes, the last week has been busy, why I hear you ask, quite simply because it has been school holidays which means I have all three of the little people at home. Originally I had thought that due to having an infestation of small people, I might actually have more time to myself, mainly because the eldest two are pretty self contained and really enjoy playing with the cutest one. However once again my optimism has been misplaced.

"Dad can we play a game?"
"Dad can you do drawing with me?"
"Dad can we watch <insert movie/tv show here>?"
"Dad can you read me a story?"
"Dad I'm hungry, can I have something to eat?"
and of course,
"Dad, where's the baby?"

are daily questions. Nay, often they are hourly questions, and there are a lot more besides. The great thing is that I love doing all these and many more things with the kids, just perhaps not all the time, and not without respite. Keeping the little people entertained has become my temporary job. Yes it is lovely to see the older pair all the time but really is it asking too much to have a tiny amount of personal time during the day? Apparently, yes, yes it is.

Therefore my days have been filled with monopoly, boggle and other board games, children's TV (which for those of you who know me isn't a bad thing), Dr Who repeats (see immediate past bracketed comment), fetching and preparing snacks, including force feeding the boy fruit which he abhors, trying to palm the cutest one off onto the elder ones (with only moderate and short lived success), and all the while trying to keep house in order and get dinner on table to satisfy she-who-has-begun-to-don-a-black-helmet. Speaking of which and with reference to my last post, yesterday I apparently put the towels in the linen cupboard the wrong way; and here I was thinking I had not only been folding the towels in the right way but was continuing the right thing by actually putting them away too, but alas no. Most of the above list (pre-towel tangent) has been fantastic fun, other than not being able to get my accustomed me time. I like me time. I like it a lot. I like it so much I have been known to take a days recreational leave from work (the paid variety) to do nothing at all but stuff I want to do, as opposed to using it for errands, jobs, looking after sick children and even holidays. Me time is really important. It gives you a mental and sometimes physical refresh and prepares you for the rest of the day, or winds you down when you need it.

However there is a certain monotony to playing monopoly every day, so to break things up I planned or rather thought about, because planning implies dates, schedules, activities etc, taking the kids on outings. Perhaps a trip to the cinema, or the science museum for example. We managed one such outing, mini-golf, and it was enjoyed by one and all, especially me because I won; I don't believe in mollycoddling the children and letting them win because losing is a valuable lesson in coping with things not going your way and can may instil the fire in your belly to try harder next time and beat the "old man", oh and the boy had already beaten me three times in a row at monopoly and I don't like losing. And yes I'm sure there is an argument to support letting them win, something about confidence, but meh, I'll ignore that for now.

Unfortunately a knee injury whilst playing basketball (whilst on me time, a regular, planned, weekly me time which is very different to extra bonus me time) has meant that outings have been postponed until I can walk properly. Yet every cloud has a silver lining and I once again got to practice becoming a martyr and because my darling elder children are compassionate they take pity on their father and willingly help at any opportunity. However She-with-new-found-respiratory-problem is too wily; more martyrdom practice necessary for me. Anyway it looks like I'll have opportunity to get my revenge on the boy and defeat him in monopoly.

1 comment:

  1. haha love it. We have 1, but get that feeling too, alot. Can't imagine what it would be like\is like with 1+. In saying all that (about the lack there of me time) would have it any other way (us time that is).....

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