Great Expectations

Five-year olds are very demanding, are they not?

On Saturday, B spent his usual friday night and saturday with his dad, during which time he had a jam-packed day at the local farm park going on tractor rides, train rides, big bouncy trampolines, oversized sandpits, picnic, etc, etc. He had a great time, and so when I picked him up at the train station at 4pm I knew he'd be ready for his tea and a rest. I know very little, obviously.

We hadn't even left the station when it began:
B: Mummy, what are we doing now?
Me: We're going home.
B: Noooo (in his best whiny voice), I don't want to go home.
Me: It'll be tea-time by the time we get home, so we're going home.
B: No, I want to do something else outside the house.
Me: But you've had a long day, and now it's tea-time.
B: Noooo (perfecting the whine), I want to do something else before we go home.
...and so on. Eventually I managed to distract him when our bus arrived.

So, we get a seat on the bus and he starts again:
B: Mummy, what are we doing tomorrow?
Me: I don't know yet. (thinking, he's been busy today, so we'll just take it easy tomorrow, a quiet day in the house)
B: I want to do something tomorrow. I want to go somewhere.
Me: We'll see. Depends on the weather.
B: But what are we going to do? I don't want to stay in the house, we can go somewhere else inside if it's raining ... etc etc

Oh, give me a break! Why is it when they have a really busy day, they're not satisfied with a quiet day. They want the busy day again and again.

This doesn't bode well for the summer holidays. 6 1/2 weeks of "what are we doing today? I want to do something today". Of course, this is an oh-so-familiar, age-old problem, I know. But come the 29th June, it'll be the first time we've had to deal with it. Before school, B was at private nursery so no lengthy summer holidays to contend with.

So I've started sowing the seeds now. Letting him know that we won't be having far-flung (expensive) days out every single day of the holidays. That some days will be 'lazy' days, but lazy days can be as fun as expensive days. Collecting ideas for where we can go, which will not send me even quicker to financial ruin. That's my homework for the next few weeks.

If only I thought it would stifle the expectations of a 5 year-old.