should have left the kids at home.

friday 17.9.2010

My kids are driving me barmy. I don't think it's natural to spend so much time travelling and sleeping in close quarters. I thought about nomadic tribes, but figured even they would have seperate horses/camels/gypsy caravans/whatever or, if walking, would be able to run off sometimes and just be.
I'm sick of "what is there to eat?/I'm hungry!" being whined at me every ten minutes. It doesn't help that there's not a lot they can eat - all four of them have pretty serious allergies and/or intolerances - so all their food is home made/baked and therefore I'm not willing to let them shovel it in. Does that make sense? Maybe I shIould be more willing to let them eat stuff I know I've made, but it really does take a lot of my time to cook and bake for them.

I'm also sick of the constant fighting that sarts as soon as they wake up. Literally the minute they are awake it's on. "Stop touching me!" Stop kicking me!" See, they're sharing a bed. Well the three older ones are. They are H - who is 7 and like to pretend she's civil and cooperative but is really in her own little world most of the time, E - who is 5 who has Asperger's syndrome and just doesn't "get" a lot of stuff and C - who is totally insane and 3 (and probably has ADHD like her father, the afforementioned J.T. - there's also the little one M - who is 9 months old and as gorgeous as can be, but insists on breastfeeding every 10 mins or so.  ) I knew that sharing a bed would be really hard on E. She doesn't like being touched, which is really hard to avoid when sharing a smaller-than-double bed. We have them top-to-tail, but C tends to bunch up against H and then there's nowhere for E's feet to go between them. Immediately she assumes that C is kicking her, but I think C is just touching her. Of course as soon as she growls "STOP KICKING ME!" C starts kicking her. Because she's three and insane. Then it's on. We've tried to get E to lie on the edge of the bed, to ignore her, to "use her words," but nothing is working. This morning we tried to practice with E lying diagonal and the other two bunched in a corner. Sigh.

For some reason - as I mentioned to J.T. this morning as we listened to them bickering - I expected they would reach some kind of Zen state where they could exist in perfect peace and harmony. I expected this to come within a few days of starting out on our journey but maybe it's still to come. Maybe I just need to chill.