Child Care Fatigue (CCF)

The past few days at home has been crazy. There can simply be no rest in a household with:

• A 5-years old brother who cannot stop talking and getting jealous of his 11-month old baby brother.
• A baby who is on the verge of walking and talking, making very dangerous and wobbly attempts to stand up holding on to anything his little hands can grasp.
• A maid who sometimes feels like my third child, requiring lots of supervision and rescuing.

Over the last week, I've made coloured ice, dyed napkins, watched Transformers on DVD, made playdough using natural ingredients (Leng, your recipe works!), watched Bee movie, created a volcano made of playdough and simulated an erruption with KK. I've also fixed back the arm of Bonecrusher transformer at least 100 times and nearly thrown KK out of the house for talking back. I'm feeling "child care fatigued".

There's this trait common in both my sons, they cannot play independently. I think there's some genetic defect. KK needs a constant playmate. And since his little brother is not yet grown up, he's bugging me to play with him everytime. I try to oblige but sometimes I literaly have to command him to play by himself. Baby X, he's showing signs of this trait. He's happy just crawling around me as long as I sit nearby. But once I move off, he will follow me. Why is it that some kids can just sit on their own for 1 - 2 hours playing their toys quietly and mine can't?

KK has just finished packing his toys grudgingly and Baby X is asleep, thankfully. I guess it's time for me to think of the next activity. Let see, maybe we'll make some cut-out sandwiches with condensed milk and thousands/hundreds. I definitely need a cup of tea.