Bored To Death

I know I know, busy also wanna complain, now too free also wanna complain! Forgive me, let me vent on my blog please.

Without the burden/task/responsibility of reading parenting books nowadays, I really have a lot of free time on my hands. This has got 'worse' since I moved the boys into the same bedroom last week. Previous routine: Didi went for his nap at 1pm, fell asleep shortly after, and woke up about two hours later. Jiale went in for nap around 2pm, took up to two hours to fall asleep, and woke up about two hours later. This meant that I only had about 1-2 hours when I was really free, when both boys were asleep. When one or both of the boys were awake, I would not read books or use the laptop anymore.

Current routine: Both boys go into the room around 1pm. They play and toss & turn for very long. (It has been 2 hours 20 min for today, and at least one of them is still awake from what I see on the video monitor.) Then it will be another 1.5 hours minimum before they wake up (unless there's loud thunderstorm or I am very suay la). That means I am free and alone from 1pm until around 5.30pm!! The whole afternoon I ZUO BO!

I told myself to limit to one blog post a day, so that I wouldn't spend too much time on the laptop and end up too tired to play with the boys. But now, my problem is too BORED instead of too TIRED. Since I don't have books to read at night and hubby usually uses the laptop to play games when he is home, I have nothing to do at night. Now we have all the HK drama and English movie channels but I am not the type to get hooked on TV or games easily. So I usually end up sleeping early at night (before 11pm). So I don't even dare to (and truthfully, don't really need to) take naps in the daytime in case I can't fall asleep at night.

[By this point, I guess many people, especially working mothers, wanna beat me up liao. I feel you ok. Once upon a time I also felt so busy and tired that I wondered how on earth people found time and energy to do xyz. Now I am so free that I wonder what on earth people are so busy with.]

So how have I been occupying myself? Everyday I think about what self-care treatments I can do during bathtimes. Have been doing body scrubs and oil cleansing at least every alternate day, some facial pampering like exfoliation/masks on alternate days, slathering on body oil & moisturiser and massaging into the drier areas like knees after the shower, etc.. Even during my (long) afternoon breaks, I apply oil on my hands & feet (while wearing gloves & thick socks), eat some fruits.. just to pass time.. Not that I am obssessed over skincare now.. it's that I am really too bored.. Of course I can do constructive things like polish the floors or spring-clean every corner of my house, but I don't want to tax myself physically either. This is not called lazy hor, it's called motherly protecting of my baby :p

I suddenly realised that perhaps it's not totally because I stopped poring over parenting books. Maybe the boys are just older and more independent now, plus they have each other for company, and thus I am more relaxed? And of course reaping the rewards of the sleep training! See, this is the reason why I want to have my children close in age.. suffer like crazy first then can quickly enjoy! (as opposed to spreading out the suffering over a longer period. In the end, it still adds up to the same amount of suffering la. No escaping. Might as well get it over.) Didn't get to enjoy any break previously as the age gap was only 18 months. Now I get to enjoy a few months of relative leisure as the third child is almost two years younger than the second. The madness will resume by April (EDD is 2 April), but I can look forward to a prolonged break when Baby is 18 months old! : )