Its been a hectic month. After having virtually no visitors in the last 10 months except my parents, we suddenly had two within a span of 10 days. The first was my cousin, really more of a sister whom I grew up with who visited with her hubby and 10 month old daughter A. S and our A took an immense liking to their cousin A who was absolutely adorable and S has been pestering me to give her a baby also soon (I love the way these kids refer to siblings as their babies!). They were here only for three days, but it was 3 hectic days of sight seeing, eating, gossipping and drinking way too much wine. It was so different for my cousin and me when we were growing up, we had long summer days with nothing to do but idle our time away together. And now we have to sneak time after the kids have gone to sleep to catch up on old times, and that too after her making all the effort to travel half the world to see us. I wish I had tons of money and could fly wherever i wanted, whenever i did. The days ended up being quite hectic because I had to manage S school schedule (i just kept A home) - i had friends taking her home for playdates and me landing up later in the evening to pick her up so I could get more time in Zurich city with my cousin.
Soon after my hubby's sister visited us en route to a conference. The girls adore her and she spoils them. It works out well :) We did a lot of day trips with her and it did get quite hectic managing the house, sightseeing and the girls.
After that its been a series of end of year celebration at S school - sports day (was that a tiring 2 hours in the sun), making cupcakes with the class to belatedly celebrate a teachers birthday and finally organising the end of year celebration party. Add to this, our sudden fascination with playing tennis in 30 degrees heat and suddenly we find that our bodies can take it no more. The day of the end of year party S woke up with high fever, cough and vomiting. I had a bad sore throat. Since I was class mom I had to help organise the party and stupidly I thought S would feel bad if she missed out so I took her there for an hour. Big mistake. She was exremely tired within an hour and started crying. It was very hot and A started howling asking to be carried, so I had to leave within 15 mins of the party starting and rush home. But we had a 3 hour nap in the afternoon and another 10 hour sleep at night. And I think it was a way of our bodies telling us to slow down, to relax and to take a break. I think I've just been pushing it too much, taking on too many activities, playdates for S, and activities for me as well, and not taking a break in the weekends either- last weekend we had a birthday party and park on Saturday and a long day in an amusement park (Europa park) on Sunday. My problem is I've always kept myself busy, I just can't sit still, but i think its having a toll on me and the kids. S now asks what to do if we're home for half an hour and there's no activity planned. And she looks tired also by the end of the week. I think its time to take a step back, relax and just do nothing.
In another 3 weeks I'll be in Bangalore and what better place to do that than my parents house!
Separately I had an interesting discussion with some women in my book club. I found them to be strangely content being at home travelling with their husbands as expat wives after giving up a career. Maybe its to do with the fact that they have much elder kids who are of course much more independent and are in school the whole day leaving the mums free to do things like hiking, skiing, tennis, board games club (doesn't that sounds like fun!) etc during the day instead of having a little one where my schedule consists of either dropping or picking up the kids, or making their lunch, feeding them, putting them down for a nap or taking them for playdates. Maybe I would be less resentful of not having a job if I was having fun in my 'free' time instead of being a driver/cook/maid all in one. I'm sorry I just can't look at this situation and say I get to spend this time with my kids, isn't that great. Yes, it would be great if i actually got to do fun things with them. But having two youngs kids (especially since I've not been that great in disciplining in training them) is a lot of physical work and after you finish all the daily chores, if you get to spend an hour quality time with the kids thats a bonus.
Wow so much ranting, but its so easy to get despondent in such a situation and I find that keeping myself extremely busy at least stops that.
Soon after my hubby's sister visited us en route to a conference. The girls adore her and she spoils them. It works out well :) We did a lot of day trips with her and it did get quite hectic managing the house, sightseeing and the girls.
After that its been a series of end of year celebration at S school - sports day (was that a tiring 2 hours in the sun), making cupcakes with the class to belatedly celebrate a teachers birthday and finally organising the end of year celebration party. Add to this, our sudden fascination with playing tennis in 30 degrees heat and suddenly we find that our bodies can take it no more. The day of the end of year party S woke up with high fever, cough and vomiting. I had a bad sore throat. Since I was class mom I had to help organise the party and stupidly I thought S would feel bad if she missed out so I took her there for an hour. Big mistake. She was exremely tired within an hour and started crying. It was very hot and A started howling asking to be carried, so I had to leave within 15 mins of the party starting and rush home. But we had a 3 hour nap in the afternoon and another 10 hour sleep at night. And I think it was a way of our bodies telling us to slow down, to relax and to take a break. I think I've just been pushing it too much, taking on too many activities, playdates for S, and activities for me as well, and not taking a break in the weekends either- last weekend we had a birthday party and park on Saturday and a long day in an amusement park (Europa park) on Sunday. My problem is I've always kept myself busy, I just can't sit still, but i think its having a toll on me and the kids. S now asks what to do if we're home for half an hour and there's no activity planned. And she looks tired also by the end of the week. I think its time to take a step back, relax and just do nothing.
In another 3 weeks I'll be in Bangalore and what better place to do that than my parents house!
Separately I had an interesting discussion with some women in my book club. I found them to be strangely content being at home travelling with their husbands as expat wives after giving up a career. Maybe its to do with the fact that they have much elder kids who are of course much more independent and are in school the whole day leaving the mums free to do things like hiking, skiing, tennis, board games club (doesn't that sounds like fun!) etc during the day instead of having a little one where my schedule consists of either dropping or picking up the kids, or making their lunch, feeding them, putting them down for a nap or taking them for playdates. Maybe I would be less resentful of not having a job if I was having fun in my 'free' time instead of being a driver/cook/maid all in one. I'm sorry I just can't look at this situation and say I get to spend this time with my kids, isn't that great. Yes, it would be great if i actually got to do fun things with them. But having two youngs kids (especially since I've not been that great in disciplining in training them) is a lot of physical work and after you finish all the daily chores, if you get to spend an hour quality time with the kids thats a bonus.
Wow so much ranting, but its so easy to get despondent in such a situation and I find that keeping myself extremely busy at least stops that.
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