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My little whirlwind

Over the festive season I had the privilege of spending it with my 2,9year old. I must say what I had envisaged to be a hectic time filled with moments of frustration and long whinny seasons turned out to be some of the best days of my life….

When I entertain my gorgeous daughter, my imagination as a working mom consists of sorry to say but shoving her in front of the TV with chips (my daughter is a chip fiend!!!) and putting on the nearest Disney movie I can grab in between doing whatever needs to be done.

My gorgeous little chirrup is just like her father, when she is hungry and a little tired she is grumpy - grumpy – my definition of her grumpy is as follows:-

Take Grumpy the seven dwarf multiply that by a raging bull, add a dash (big one) of a PMS’d woman, mix and stir in a whirlwind take it all shove it into a tiny little vessel who has mastered the art of playing the violin with my last nerve with the pitch of her whine and wow, the combination and combustion of our colliding consists of me wanting to strangle myself with my jugular vein and both of us having a time out….. me standing outside dragging so hard on my cigarette that the filter collapses whining at any passers by who will listen my woes and her sitting very forlorn in the room whinny crying….

So when I say that my expectations of our time together was not a picturesque one I am not exaggerating. This is due to the fact that we live on the 3rd floor of a block of flats and her wanting to play outside which is a fenced off area which consists of 90% tar, 10% red ant infested grass which is 5% hills.

This holiday had a record of 5 days of sunshine. So my big game plan of going out everyday to a different venue was hindered by not only the torrid weather but also the fact that Durban is going through major revamps and all the kiddies type places that are reasonable priced were no longer available and the prospects of me taking her to a park everyday was just as exhausting thinking about as the actual events are.

Initially I tried the usual stick you in front of the telly with chips working mom routine which worked out for a few hours of the first day, the reason was that I was exhausted and actually needed a 3 week holiday on a deserted mountain cap away from any living human being and a proper time out and well this is clearly not on the cards when you’re a mommy….

So the first few days grumpy mom, grumpy and frustrated toddler was at loggerheads. I sat and reflected after about day three of both of us looking glum and miserable both wanting to do the opposite of what the other wanted and realised, she is the child and I am the mother for the 9 millionth time but then really dissected this.

My responsibility as a mother is lists and lists long but one of these responsibilities would be to try to the best of my ability to ensure a healthy and safe environment for my child and this would incorporate mental health and mental health would mean happiness and happiness equates to fun and fun for a 2.9 does not entail watching telly and doing stuff in doors for a long period of time.

So I took my tired frazzled little ego and squashed it into a little corner, took my disturbing need for a break and as a mom squashed it into another closet and started playing with my daughter. We played inside, we played outside, we went here, we went there and we were busy all the time. Shopping became an excursion (yes and a chore every other day when she was tired and grumpy but was too be expected) and we had a bloody marvellous time. I even started playing hiding go seek with my little one we did so many activities that I pulled the calf muscle in my one leg and wanted to die of pain when I had to dash to “block myself” while playing hide and go seek but hell we had a ball.

The best part of all of this is that my mental anguish disappeared and the holiday was actually great, I came back to work in a better mental state and to top it all off with all the exercise I did I lost a whopping 4kgs – just exercising. I did not go on a diet this was the festive season after all.

In closing I have to say that my sacrifice which in hindsight I saw through the petty feeble eyes of a tired working mom was worth every single second! I haven’t stopped playing hiding go seek but we don’t do it as often and ironically the food intake has become healthier but I haven’t lost any more weight...

Ulandi
 
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