No Sleep 'til Bedtime

The dry run was a good idea in principle but I couldn’t drag myself out of bed to do it, so I’m none the wiser regarding the commuting time. It’s tiring having every minute of your day spoken for in some trip to buy something/find something/entertain Ella, so when another day of furniture hunting and sitting in the local park beckoned, I was more than ready to stuff my head back under the pillow.

Ella woke at 6am because the fan in her room was making her cold. With no air con, the evenings are sticky and there’s no way she can wear a sleeping bag or go without the fan. Being a light sleeper, however, we risk our evening peace if we attempt to switch the fan off before we go to bed, hence the problem.

Set out to the park this morning, just for a change. Arthur and Guinevere were there again with their odd-looking parents (father permanently attached to his mobile phone, mother resplendent in floaty white cotton but with mad, staring, glassy eyes. The whole family look as though they are members of a sect and perhaps they are).

Afterwards, we took Ella to her new nursery and spent an hour and a half with the kids, who all seem happy with their lot. The head of nursery has put her with the 2-3 year olds because she thinks she will be bored with the kids of her own age, which is good on the one hand, but I’m a little concerned that her pushing and snatching behaviour won’t go down too well. Already she’s taller than at least half of the other children in the group, but emotionally she’s still looking for reassurance that I’m there. She ploughs into the classroom with huge confidence and interacts with the other children, all the while keeping one eye on me. We go back next week for another visit and we hope she’ll go for a full half day on Tuesday so we can sort out the old and new flats. This one has dissolved into filthy chaos so might take some time to clean up.

At lunchtime we drove to Darling Harbour with a plan; Ella would fall asleep (her head was already lolling about as we set off), we would cover the pushchair with the Burka and enjoy a peaceful lunch in one of the harbour-side fish restaurants. We see other parents doing it, so hell, why not?

I should have known better after the debacle of our evening out in St Ives last September (We went to an open-air restaurant after she fell asleep, on the advice of other parents with children the same age. Ella slept for four hours, but woke during our dessert, which meant we had to finish our meals alone while the other pushed the pram up and down the road outside). Today’s plan worked well for ten minutes, then Ella woke up, sat up and started demanding again.

Considering she’d had only ten minutes sleep, she was relatively well-behaved in the restaurant, though the child’s portion of “tomato and basil pasta” turned out to be a huge bowl of steaming hot spaghetti that she simply couldn’t handle, leaving her demanding “want it” and pointing at Darren’s “Fisherman’s Basket”. The meal was not the most peaceful I’ve ever had. It’s hard to enjoy a meal when you have to place your drinks and cruet onto the pavement to avoid them being “wanted” and grabbed, though even this was a waste of time in the event, as a glass went flying straight onto my plate, leaving my meal and my clothes swimming in low-alcohol beer. Why must it all be such enormous hard work? Why doesn’t our child sleep? There are times I would gladly stop the car and post her back to the UK recorded delivery if I thought somebody else would be able to cope with her constant demands.

After the lunch, we walked around Darling Harbour towards the aquarium. She still wouldn’t fall asleep, instead hanging out of her pushchair crying and shouting “I want walk, I want see water”. We gave up on the sleep and paid $28.00 each for entry to the new Australian Wildlife exhibition, which would probably have been interesting had we been allowed to stop and look properly at the animals. Ella ran ahead, tripping over in her exhaustion and becoming quite hyperactive. “It’s like she’s been eating blue Smarties” commented Darren. I find it such a depressing experience to be in Sydney with a toddler. I don’t regret being here, but it’s not an experience I would recommend or wish to repeat.

All around are people with actual lives, people having lunch, chilling out, drinking wine, chatting, just like we did last time we were in Sydney. I worked out this evening that I had listened to Ella crying for about four solid hours today in the heat and humidity and the whole problem stems from her absolute stubborn refusal to take a daytime nap. Without the new nursery on the horizon I’m not sure I would be staying in Sydney longer than six months because I’m not ashamed to admit that I simply can’t look after Ella on a full-time basis. Whilst she is absolutely charming, especially for grandparents looking after her for an afternoon, in real-life, with us, she is the most extraordinarily alert and verbally demanding child I’ve ever come across and until she develops some reasoning skills, we need significant amounts of help to care for her. Even Darren is at the end of his (very long) fuse and I can see him dying to get out of the door and go to work to stop the crying and demanding ringing in his ears.

Am I a rubbish mother? I don't know. I just know I have huge admiration for stay-at home mums; not the sort who lounge about on the sofa watching Jeremy Kyle but the types who try to engage with their kids, the ones who cut up playdough and wipe finger paint from the walls and cook all their child's meals from scratch. It's much, much more exhausting than going out to work.