• A nearly three-year-old son is a handful when parenting abroad with little help
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My son’s daycare closed for three weeks just two days ago. To say that I have spent the last week freaking out is an understatement.
“What will I do? How will I keep him entertained all day, everyday, every hour of the day?”
As you know, I only have one child. He’s almost three and we live in a second floor apartment somewhere very far from home with no family. As such, apart from the little respite we have from daycare, the responsibility of watching over our son rests solely on my husband and I.
Ideally, over this break, we would have been in Kenya or taking a little vacation somewhere. But because of previous commitments, my husband and I must be in town until September. This means that not only will we stay at home for most of the vacation period but also our movement will be relatively constricted to our town and the nearby environs.
Lucky for me, my husband is also off work for a couple of weeks, helping with the task of watching our child. Not only just physically watching him and playing with him, we have also assigned ourselves the difficult task of finally getting the potty training done once and for all. The idea that we will have poop and pee messes to clean around the clock, constant fights to get him to the potty amidst other tasks is enough to scare us.
Meanwhile, a few weeks ago, my sister was going through the same lamentations about having the kids home 24/7. Unlike me, she has two teenagers and one preteen. A little easier one may argue than having a tot who needs constant supervision. However, the worries are the same: How will we keep them occupied? How will one handle the constant push and pull tug-of-war between parents and teens who often don't want to do anything? And of course with teens, one must also prepare for how much they eat.
As a kid, I remember my mother desperately wondering when schools would close so she could have a break from the early mornings and stress of preparing for school. And within one week of us being home, she would often shout in frustration, “When are these schools opening again so we can have a break?”
As a parent, now I understand what she meant. Unfortunately, as much as we love our children and hope for less stress during the school year, we also dread having them home every hour of every day for their school break.
Unlike schools, where they must adhere to strict rules, schedules and conduct, the home is a safe zone that allows them to freely express themselves. And behind every kid having a blast at home is an exhausted parent doing all the hard work, praying for the day school resumes.