C went on a business trip for six days recently, which meant that I was solo parenting for six looooooong days in Jakarta. Yes, we have a helper, but she lives in from Mondays to Fridays, and her “me-time” starts after dinner is done, so I was all alone with three kids on Sunday night (when C left), and I was solely responsible for getting three kids to sleep every night, for five nights. You have no idea how tough it is, trying to tandem nurse two squirmy babies, while reading a bedtime story to N. If said babies would tandem nurse and then fall asleep, I wouldn’t mind, but no, they had to tandem nurse, then one would need to burp, then the other would decide that he/she didn’t like staring at his/her sibling while drinking milk, then one would refuse to drink if both my hands weren’t on him/her… And don’t get me started on the preschooler. Let’s just say that bedtimes weren’t fun at all, for any of us, okay?
Anyway, C went out one evening for a meeting, leaving me to do the bedtime routine with three kids. He was out for about 2.5 hours, and I spent the entire 2.5 hours trying to get three kids to sleep. None of them were willing to cooperate with me, so when C got home, he was surprised to see everyone still awake.
Aforementioned three kids
C: Huh? How come nobody is sleeping yet? Me: Ask your kids that, please. C: Aiyoh. *Comes over to carry one of the babies.* Me: Can you help to hold both the babies please? I really need to pee. C: Huh? I can only hold one baby. I can’t look after two. Me: What do you mean you can’t look after two babies? I looked after all three kids for more than two hours, and you can’t hold two babies for two minutes? C: Okay, pass the other one to me.
I pass him the other baby, then walk towards our bathroom, which is in our walk-in wardrobe area.
C: Hey! Where are you going? Me: To the toilet la! Then to Narnia through the wardrobe meh?
Our walk-in wardrobe does NOT look like this
Seriously, if I could survive five nights of solo parenting, two minutes is nothing, right? To be fair, he usually helps with the kids when he’s at home, but for some reason, he decided that he couldn’t that night. *rolls eyes* Anyway, he didn’t get the Narnia reference, but my Dayre readers did, and thought it was funny, so I thought I’d share it here too. Anyone wants to go to Narnia with me?
PS. If you don’t know where Narnia is, read this.