It was hard I won’t lie. I worried about the toddler. She challenges me more and more each day with her defiance, her sass and her acting out due to her need for attention. I can not contain her and often this month I have felt like a failure of a Mum. I sometimes do wonder if I have a good grasp at all on what to do with her. Twice this month I have gotten so frustrated with her that I have tried to make her feel bad over what little selfish thing she had done to upset me. Petty of me, because of course she doesn’t understand how when I am tired or sick I can’t play with her anymore. She just demands it regardless of any circumstance. I need to accept that I am to be her everything when she is on my watch. Other days I teeter between using kind language to persuade her to concede versus using threats of cancelling treats or activities and I feel like a crazy lady when her antics escalate to all sorts of cray to drive me up the wall.
Last week alone on Monday, she defied me and opened a gate at a pub which had a sign to say Do not Enter which I had read to her and then lied to say Peter Rabbit was responsible. On Tuesday, she got bored in Mandarin class and decided to walk out to play and when I dragged her back into class she hit her baby sister on her rage. Wednesday she was lovely until I tried to explain to her it may be nice to lend some toys to a visiting friend whose little boy had lost all his toys in Hurricane Irma and she kept shouting he could have none. Thursday she insisted on jumping into her sister’s cot after I had out her down for the night resulting in of course her waking her sister up. Is this all just attention seeking behaviour? Is it normal Three year old behaviour can anyone confirm to me? I miss my sweet little two year old now. She may have tantrumed then but she was never as naughty or mean as she is now.
It wasn’t all hard though. It has been a lovely hot June and so the girls have enjoyed playgrounds, play dates, wetlands, picnics galore, even caught the changing of the guards and visited two museums.
Picnics make it so much easier as eating al fresco means very little cleaning up. It also means easy to little cooking. I’ve been boiling some easy finger veg and find boiled eggs make very easy BLW picnic food. Otherwise, a bit of sliced cheese or poached chicken is always welcome protein. Fruit is also at their best this season making easy and healthy puddings for these picnics.
Eating at home required lots of easy meals. I find myself buying pre-prepped veg quite a lot so that often I only need to blanch them in boiling water and serve up with easy oven or slow cooked protein options.
These were Asian meals, premade and frozen dumplings, batch made stock, one pot rice cooker steamed miso cod and sous vide bulgogi beef with Korean rice cakes, udon or fried rice have been easy crowd pleasers.
On the western meals front, if it isn’t pasta with leftover roast, then I’ve opted to buy ready meals or premarinated meats such as tortillas, pies, lamb kebabs, chicken goujons or breaded fish are also generally easy toddler meals.
That’s all done and dusted now. June’s taster of being a full time SAHM. The flat isn’t as clean as I’d like. The children weren’t always as well turned out as i would have liked. But the important thing is that we are all loving and growing together. I just need to mother on and keep my eye on the prize.
- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone
