The Desire for Desires

I'm in planning mode. Planning, I find is the only way to avoid confrontation with a willful 2 and a half year old who has the boredom threshold of a manic depressive. I'm told it's down to a 2 year old's inability to focus for very long on anything. Totally normal. Still, staving off tedium is no mundane matter. Personally I can spend 8 hours online and never run out of stuff to keep me stimulated. Unfortunately, my nipper has a little way to go before she too can boast such rock n' roll credentials.

For me Tuesday night is the new Sunday night and this is because for the two days following, I'm working the mummy shift for which I have to prepare or live to regret (preceded and followed by the blessed relief of daycare).

There was once a time I didn't have to think about parenthood. It came naturally to feed, burp, put to sleep and gurgle along with a teeny tiny baby. It's when they can start making demands and showing disdain that you need all the help you can get and I hate to tell you, but that starts sooner than you think. So I always invest a little time on Tuesday nights, when the dear girl has waddled off to bed, to plan and cram as much activity into Wednesdays and Thursdays as possible - the aim being to totally annihilate the woman's resolve and generally reduce opportunities to whinge. She is half British afterall. It doesn't take much.

So tomorrow I'm going to try the Children's Museum in Hamilton. Ironically it costs more for the kid than the adult to get in this will I hope yield knock-on activity of a creative kind. On Thursday I will try for the first time since she was a babe in arms to take her to a cinema where I anticipate being surrounded by kiddy chaos as parents, lulled by the darkness and relative quiet of the auditorium begin a frustrating fight against fatigue. The complimentary wet wipes alone, (promised by the theatre's website) are an enticing enough draw.

I'm a fan of introducing new activity to my daughter's otherwise predictable schedule and while I don't deny the very evident benefits of routine in a child's life, there is really only one cure for boredom and that it curiosity. Problem is...is there a cure for curiosity? Who knows. Finding out is half the fun.

If the world's second worst crime is boredom. The first is being a bore and I never want my child to accuse me of that until I'm at least past 'the change'.