Being cooped-up at home isn’t fun, even if the kids are well-behaved, no tantrums, no crying whatsoever (which is a rare occurrence), so we decided to venture out into the wild with all three kids today. Initially we were ambitious enough to suggest going to town with them, but we thought better of it and ended up picking the mall which has become so familiar to us, and yet I despise it - Compass Point, just a train stop away from our place. Easy trip, just a hop and skip to Compass Point, have coffee, do a bit of grocery shopping, then back home in time for lunch.
Wrong!
Initially, it was ok, all three kids were raring to go, and even though Ajab cried in the lift for reasons I can’t remember now, the boys were still in good spirits, albeit a little hungry because they only had some bread and cookies for breakfast. Maya was sleeping throughout the trip, oblivious to her brothers’ antics.
By the time we got to the LRT station, while waiting for the train, Ayeed was off. He started the cranky-fest with his impatience - always wanted to be on the go. Thankfully he was ok on the train.
The trouble really started at Starbucks. Ayeed, by this time was really not up to it, crying immediately as we sat down at our table at Starbucks. The passing cars and buses which usually put a smile on Ayeed’s face, failed to liven up his spirits. Whether he was too hot, too hungry, too sleepy, or what, I don’t know but he wasn’t going to be pacified by some passing car on the road. I didn’t get to touch my toffee nut latte until much, much later because Ayeed wanted to be carried around or something (still cranky). I took him to watch the cabs coming in to pick up / drop off passengers. That cheered him up a bit, but I didn’t want to leave Trin and Maya alone for too long (actually I was thirsty and wanted to drink my latte before it got cold), so back to our table we went, much to the annoyance of Ajab who showed his displeasure, but I was adamant on going back and I dragged him along.
I only managed to sit for something like two seconds after putting Ayeed back in the stroller before he started bawling again. After taking a sip of my fast-cooling latte, I hauled him out of the stroller again and went back to watching the cabs, walking a little too fast, so much so that Ajab thought I was leaving him, so he cried too. By this time, they were really getting to me and I sat them both down on the pavement not far from the drop-off point and waited for them to stop crying, which they did eventually.
But the heat or something else made Ayeed cry again. I had enough so I hauled both of them back to our table and told Trin we’re going home now. We made a quick stop at the basement where Trin got lunch from Burger King and I went to the DIY store to get some clothes hanging thingies (whatever they’re called, them thingies to hang small items of clothings). We have seven of those thingies, by the way, and they’re still not enough for all the kids clothes. Maybe I should do the laundry every day!
The only peace we got this afternoon was when I put both the boys to sleep and I went out again to the supermarket nearby to get the groceries which we were supposed to get while we were at Compass Point! Oh, the tiredness!! And it got worse when the boys woke up. Ayeed continued his crankiness, roaming about the house, getting his hands on anything he could find and making a huge mess, disobeying us, making a whole lot of noise, irritating Ajab, etc.
The final straw was later in the evening when they were in the study/playroom by themselves, as usual, watching TV. Or at least I thought they were watching TV. I was in the living room when I heard Ayeed cry out loudly. I’m not sure what happened but I’m guessing it had something to do with a couple of plastic cones which Ajab was holding as I stormed into the room to find out what was happening. Either Ayeed was playing with the cones and Ajab snatched them away or Ajab was playing with them and Ayeed irritated him and Ajab lashed out or something. No evidence, so like all good police state/juntas/military regime …. I punished BOTH of them. I switched off the TV, turned off the lights (while they were still in the room!), made them milk and forced them to go to bed, even though it was just past 9.00pm (they usually sleep at 10.30pm on weekends). I made sure there can be no denying that Daddy was pissed with them both.
What a day ….. it’s one of those where everything is out of sorts with the kids and you’re left with nothing but tiredness and (sometimes) a huge migraine at the end of the day. The outing was a bust. Let’s see when the next one will be, and where. I’m almost afraid to think of the consequences of another day like today. There have been many in the past but one is just too many.
I’m kind of taking inspiration from what I watched on Discovery Home and Health about this couple with EIGHT kids, where in one episode they had a tough time with the kids at Toys ‘R’ Us and the wife asked the husband, “Would you rather stay at home and stare at the walls or would you rather go out, get stressed and deal with it?”.
Sometimes going out is good.
Staying at home and staring at the walls can be good too, provided the kids are asleep and all is quiet and peaceful again.
Sometimes I feel like doing something like what Homer does to Bart when he gets naughty:
But then I realize that this is not a cartoon we live in, so I take a long drag from my Marlboro instead. *sigh!*
