No Time to Teach

I need to re-convince myself why I am keeping the boys at home with me instead of sending them off to school. Especially Jiale who is already the grand old age of 3 years old ('huh, still haven't gone to school ah?'). Oh wait. Make that especially Didi who is giving me headaches and back aches and muscle strains. Jiale is just such a cheerful and independent and sensible boy.... oops I digress.

On a typical day, I hardly get any time to sit down with the boys and play with them or read to them. Mornings are spent in a blur - make them their milk, change their diapers, feed them breakfast, feed them fruits, feed them snacks, feed them feed them feed them (they seem to be constantly asking for snacks when we are at home!), bathe them, change diapers clean poo again... Oh ya and I need to shower and eat breakfast myself too. And I usually vacuum the house too, cos can't vacuum while the boys are sleeping. By then, it's almost time to prepare their lunch! Soon after lunch, it's time for their nap! Goodbye sons! 

[Jiale gets constipated very easily and he's a very selective eater, so it's my priority to chase after him to eat fruits &/or prunes every morning. Didi poos an average of 3x a day. When Jiale gets constipated, he poos very often, but only a tiny pellet at a time.. but because the poo hasn't finished coming out, it's a dirty diaper almost all the time.. so I keep wiping and changing.. wiping and changing...]

It's not that I have no time.. I have so much free time in the afternoons... But not with them.. I am zuobo-ing alone... It seems that while they are up and about, there are so many mundane chores to be done! Some days, I really clean poo until I am soooooo tired... : ( I tried to spend time with them in the evenings, but seriously, even if they nap till 5pm+, they can't tahan much later than 8pm. By 7pm+, they will be rubbing their eyes and getting cranky (probably because they wake up early around 6.30am). Which means, it's dinner at about 6pm, drink milk, bathe. By then it's about 7.30pm. Time for bedtime stories.. then it's off to bed again! Goodnight sons!

This morning, I decided to try very very hard to sit down with them. But Didi was very uncooperative and unreasonable - kept wanting to be carried. He really has the stamina to keep crying until I am free to carry him lor. Argh. Anyway, I managed to sit down with them at 9am. Was so happy it was so early! (Actually, I forgot about fruits this morning, but I only remembered that much later.) BUT within 5 minutes, Jiale asked to play with sand instead! (Cos we were reading a book about trucks.. and he saw the dump trucks carrying sand.. what to do..) I got very flustered and told him cannot, we read books instead.. so of course he flew into a tantrum... In the end I managed to get him to wait till 10am for sandplay.. but there went a few precious minutes of reading.

[Frankly, I felt quite devastated when he chose sand over reading, after all the rushing I did to make sure I had time to read to them.]

The good thing was, by 10am he had forgotten about wanting to play sand, so I got to keep reading to them! Hee hee.. He remembered about 10.30am, which was also good, cos I was losing my voice by then. They went off to play with sand.. then gotta bathe them.... then gotta clean the floor cos it was sandy.... then gotta prepare their lunch liao.... They are asleep now, hopefully we will have more time to play and read together later.

So, despite having a whole day together, we don't get much time to do much seat work. Don't even wanna imagine attempting to do more 'serious' stuff like activity books. Don't even dare to think about how to do this after Meimei is here. I guess for now, I have to make a conscious effort to do this everyday - though it is stressful for me - rush rush rush and keep having to think about 'sit down with them sit down with them'.

The pros? Hmmm........................

Even if we aren't doing much structured 'learning', at least they get to see their mummy? A lot a lot a lot.. haha.

It's good for them to see their mummy doing housework right?

And if all else fails, at least the brothers get to spend time with each other? A lot a lot a lot.. make that 24 hours 7 days a week now that they even sleep together, ha! Seriously though, I do see them becoming closer since they started sharing a room : )

OK, I shall just JIA YOU for now!