Tough Week

We have been super lucky the last 6 or 7 weeks in that Tet has not had any overseas work trips. It has been lovely to have him home.

Sadly this week he has been in Jakarta. He left Monday morning and will arrive home again tonight after Scarlett has gone to bed. Usually Scarlett is better behaved for me when her father is away. Usually....

Scarlett has reached the stage of pushing boundaries - hard. She is particularly resistant to any restrictions put in place for her personal safety such as holding hands while crossing the street or wearing a seat belt while travelling in a taxi. This makes life challenging at the best of times. If you combine this with a week where she has ended up in my bed before midnight on three of the four nights it is a very tough week. I generally do not go back to sleep once Scarlett gets into bed with me. She is quite restless and flails around quite a bit while in bed. I am worn out.

Yesterday took the cake though. Scarlett had had two showers by nine thirty as she decided to use her mango yogurt for a hair treatment. The floor got quite a generous helping as well. Thursdays are the day our cleaner comes so I try to take Scarlett out to give the cleaner a good run at things. Yesterday Scarlett fell asleep on the first part of our walk in her pram. She woke up just before I headed for home. She slept for maybe 20 minutes. When it came time for a nap... no go. 

Thursday is also play date day so we had to taxi to our friends' house. She was pretty dreadful on the way there but controllable  and spent most of the trip in a belt seated. On the return journey she refused to sit and was trying to crawl all around the cab. Cue some restraining from Mummy and ten minutes of screaming from Scarlett. It was horrendous and took all my strength to keep her held and safe.

The long and short of it is I am having really major second thoughts about taking Scarlett back to NZ next month. I know she is going to fight being belted into her seat and I know that she more than likely will not sleep. I just do not think I have the energy to manage her for ten hours on the plane plus the two or more hours at the airport. This is compounded by the fact that my dad's house is not very baby friendly at all which is going to make just daily life a real drama. It is all just starting to seem too hard.

I had a bit of a meltdown on skype this morning to my poor husband who really cannot do anything about it from Jakarta. He wants me to have a weekend away from Scarlett so I can have a real clear head before I make any major decisions. I know I want to go home for Christmas but the thought of having a boundary pushing 21 month old in tow is just dismal. I have arranged to have lunch with 2 old friends and I know it is going to be awful as Scarlett expects the meal to end when she has finished. We have worked on that with her but at best she will tolerate about 5 minutes at the table before she starts to get boisterous.

Maybe a baby free weekend will help but more likely I will just feel guilty. No one else seems to have these sorts of problems with their children. People always comment on how active Scarlett is and I am increasingly aware this is not a compliment. She totally needs to start school or do something away from me to give us both a break. Up to 22 hours a day in the same room as each other is just too much.