Goodbye Lazy Days

Dave and I had the greatest of intentions of leaving the house on Easter Sunday. We woke nice and early when Jess started rattling her cot and shouting ‘MUMMMMMMMMY!!‘, we made some coffee, gave Jess her (first) breakfast of dry cereal (it’s great, she takes 20 minutes to crunch through it, that’s 20 minutes of peace to drink coffee), pushed a few buttons on the coffee machine then sat on the sofa enjoying a lovely family morning together.

I asked Dave what he would like to do for the day, he replied he was open to anything, maybe we could visit some relatives, go to the park, cut the grass, do some shopping, anything really. Feeling full of joy and coffee I agreed that I was up for anything too, we could take the day slowly and see what unfolded.

Jess had finished her rock hard breakfast by this point and I suggested we go make omelettes. The previous day I let her sit on the counter while I cracked eggs and chopped spinach, tomatoes and chorizo. She loved mixing the raw egg, on occasion flicking it in the air (much to the delight of her germ-a-phobe dad…), adding in whole tomatoes and a sprinkle of spinach. It’s ridiculously cute watching her being an adult and trying to say omelette, to be fair she does a good job of it for a 20 month old. She has cooked more omelettes than her father (2, shes made 2!). Now Jess wants to make omelettes all the time, it was cute at first but we can’t live on a diet of omelettes and not at bedtime!

But anyways, the day was going great, everyone was happy and upbeat. As it was Easter Sunday I hid some eggs around the house, Jess picked up her bucket and knew the drill. I was amazed how does she know this? I thought she would sit on the floor at the first find, but nope, she’s wise. She also knew they contained chocolate?! How?! Clearly the fact she knew they contained chocolate was the reason for her hurried egg finding mission, chucking them in her basket as quick as possible then moving on to the next one!

We let her open all the plastic eggs to reveal the goodies inside. I did think of curbing it, not letting her eat too much. But her little, face! Awww it’s too cute, take it all Jess!! She demolished all the chocolate swiftly, passing me the sweets that she was clearly disgusted with. Who doesn’t love Fizzers? With all the morning fun we didn’t realise it had become midday and it was now time for Jessica’s nap.

And it is here that we made a huge mistake. We had the choice to get up and ready for the day, instead we choose a terrible fate – a lazy day.

This is all I wanted, a family snuggle day

 

Before the beast (Jess) entered our lives, Dave and I enjoyed more than our fair share of lazy all day PJ wearing days. Most couples have those warm memories of the time you first started dating, like the first film you saw or always going out for dinner or enjoying scenic walks, our memories almost always come back to those days we would spend together all day in bed. We knew which take-aways would be open so we could order food straight from our bed, once it arrived we would binge watch entire seasons of shows, Dexter was a particular favourite for me. We would nap and snuggle and eat junk allllllll day long. It was great. No worries, no cares, just relaxation and food all day.

That shit does not fly with a kid. We know this, we tried to have a lazy day once when Jess was much younger and it was horrendous then. What possessed us to think staying in the house all day with an energetic toddler that knows there is a stash of chocolate somewhere was a good idea?!

It was fine for a while, Jess was refreshed and surprisingly happy (it’s 50/50 whether you get Jess or a gremlin after a nap) from her snooze. However, she quickly grew tired of playing alone with her toys while we drank more coffee. She started pulling at us to play and moaned ‘moooove’ if we didn’t get up straight away. Dave and I didn’t nap, we weren’t feeling quite as enthused as Jess, we both wanted to lay about the sofa while sussing out which naughty food we should get delivered. Bribing Jess with snacks didn’t help to appease the beast, in fact it probably gave her more toddler fuel. Desperately wanting to sit on my lazy arse I excitedly asked Jess if she wanted to watch Buzz (Toy Story). She watched it for about 3 minutes, meanwhile Dave and I were hooked, wanting to see the watch the entire film. Jess? Not so much. By this point she was moaning, clearly bored. She was doing that weird ‘I’m so bored’ rolling on the floor, trying to entertain herself with her own toes.

Sure enough her little piggies had finished entertaining her, she was now set about becoming a bored terror. First she chanced asking for more snacks – biscuit, biscuit biscuit, grapessss, graaaapes, tasty mmm on repeat x139084 per minute. Then it was adding a little crayon art work to the flooring. Next it was adding a few stickers to her masterpiece. Stickers FIRMLY stuck to the flooring it was magnadoodle time. Jess obviously had a picture in her mind that she wanted me to draw – good one. Forgot I am proficient in reading toddler minds. She asked me to draw ‘daddy’ so I did, she shouted ‘NOO!’ and erased it before I could add pupils to my wonderfully drawn round eyes. Not gonna lie, that was blow to my ego, I thought it was a good drawing. This time she raised her voice and demanded ‘DaaaaaDDDDY’ be drawn correctly. I drew the exact same picture, this time it passed the test, phew.

Next on the list, building blocks. All of them. On the floor. Dave and I both summoned by the beast to play. I like building blocks, I don’t like investing 5 minutes of my life creating a pretty cool ‘toot toot’ for the figures only for Jess to come take it off me and dismantle it right before me eyes. What a wee horror of a child! I took the huff and didn’t want to build anymore, sure enough Jess moaned that out of me. So I just sat trying to blink Morse code to Dave for help, while aimlessly building one brick on top of another to a great height. Jess knocked it down without so much moving her gaze from her own bricks. It was time to crack out the big guns – an Easter egg.

Idiot. Easter egg = a shit tonne of mess and screaming when you don’t let the toddler eat the whole thing in one sitting. So sorry for looking after your health you greedy wee shite. We had to distract her with a biscuit, well that’s what we thought, she just started screaming for more chocolate once the biscuit was gone. She sat at the closed living room door, sobbing asking ‘opa’ (open) so she can go continue her crying in the kitchen. That’s closer to the food and higher chance of actually getting more chocolate. She’s an evil genius. She didn’t get anymore chocolate. We didn’t get any peace. Never a great one for napping, she has recently dropped her afternoon nap, that was us until bedtime.

Look at the service she gets! You’d think as a reward she would give us peace after it…

For once it was a long Sunday. Neither one of us had the energy to get up and dressed, maybe break the day up with a walk outside. Instead we both clock watched until it was 7pm and we could put little Ms High Maintenance Bitches Don’t Like Lazy Days to bed so the real lazy day could begin. I think Jess was just as thrilled to end the day as we were. Gladly she brushed her teeth and with a petted lip said night night while climbing the stairs to her room.

Lesson learned. Poor Jess. We wont subject either parities to this ordeal again. When do kids appreciate a lazy day? Apart from when they are ill, that’s a whole other level of parent torture. We only wanted a nice lazy family day together, instead we got a moody bored toddler that was anything but lazy, in turn preventing us from being lazy. It’s much more effort to have a day in than a day at the park!

Noted! Well and truly noted!

Throw back to a happier day when we done the right thing and got out the house