Missing some Mummy Friends

Way back when, before we moved to Bosnia, I identified the development of a Mummy Network in Bosnia as pretty vital to how we managed to settle in (and even wrote a post about it: All Hail the Mother's Union). Having friends with similarish age children is such a life saver on those days when nothing is quite going to plan. It also allows everyone the opportunity to get out, behave better and have a change of scene. Before we left I was really really worried about how I would cope without one.

I still haven't developed one. I have many friends here (dear friends, wonderful friends) but they don't have children. I have a few friends with children, but they work full time and aren't around at 3pm on a Tuesday afternoon. The Bosnians, with their much tighter familial network often are able to have their grandmothers help out with childcare. There isn't really any form of toddler group and although I thought long and hard about setting one up, and even spoke to a few people about it, I just don't think it would take off here. Similarly, there aren't any toddler music classes or any of those other types of activities that can bring together Mummys of similarly aged kids. Once the children get to the age of 6 or so the number of available classes takes off, there is tennis, karate, music, swimming, you name it. But they are more of the turn up and drop your children off variety which doesn't help with the trying to make new Mummy friends.

No, those afternoons, once I have picked the boys up from nursery are all mine. Occasionally one of Adam's friends comes over. He is looked after by his 16 year old sister who also comes too. She is lovely, but she is also 16. I'm 2 years younger than her mother. It took us a while, but we are now friends, we've worked out how to while away the afternoon together whilst the boys destroy the house. We have never been invited to their house and I don't want to push it. She has no phone so I have no idea when they are coming, nor can I contact them to say 'hey, I've a great idea, lets go and do xyz this afternoon.'

But on many, many afternoons, we have no company. There is little specific child orientated activity here in Tuzla (the Bosnians being much more about activities that the whole family can be involved in, which is obviously wonderful, but an occasional child focused activity would also be wonderful). I'm left to my own devices with the boys. Boys who, at nursery have been sitting down and colouring in and doing all those industrious, shall we say peaceful activities. Boys who on leaving nursery are like corks coming out of a bottle. They want to run. They want to shout. They want to climb. They want to wave swords around, make guns out of sticks and wrestle.

It is exhausting. They do not want to sit down and colour or glue or make things with Duplo. When I try to do this type of activity it inevitably ends in things being thrown across the room. I've not quite given up, but I do look for activities that can accommodate a good throw or can be done outside where mess doesn't matter quite so much. We do a lot of kicking balls and running races and dragon hunting. I get them on their scooters (what a god send they are) and we scoot and scoot and scoot as I try to burn off some of their energy.

But it can be lonely. So intensely, frustratingly, tear inducing lonely. They are sweet boys, wonderful little lads. But they are toddlers. They fight and have tantrums. They can't quite reason or think ahead. They don't want to let me listen to the radio for 10 minutes. They, or at least one of them, requires attention all the time. And there is nowhere for me to go when it all gets too much.

There have been some long, long afternoons when all my friends are at work and I've had to call Dave and beg him to come back before I totally lose the plot. Or at least come out for a coffee with us so I can have a conversation with someone about something that makes some form of sense.

But a year on, I'm kind of getting used to it. I miss the Mothers Network at home. My goodness me how I miss it. But I'm much better at developing things to do with the boys here than I used to be. I can stretch an activity to last for hours. The boys are older and are much more able to play together than they used to be. But I'm still sitting here, on a Monday morning, with nothing planned for this week, and feeling slightly panicky about it.

poo poo face

A has been having a marvellous time recently hanging out with some slightly older children. He is enthralled by them all and has enthusiastically joined in the craze for calling everything poo poo face which he obviously finds absolutely hilarious. L (already one of Trouble's closest friends) also finds it hilarious and is desperately trying to copy his big brother. I'm not all that thrilled - L only has a total vocabulary of about 15 words, and I really am quite keen for 'Mummy' to be added to this list before 'poo poo face'.

There are a number of upsides though - for once it wasn't my boys teaching other toddlers new tricks (a fellow mothers union member is still trying to persuade her daughter not to pull her nappy down in the middle of the road for a quick standing up wee).

Slightly more worryingly, once we get to Bosnia the boys will pick up the language far faster than we will, and I'm going to be completely unaware of what delightful things I am being called whilst in 'mean mummy' mode. On balance, probably a good thing.

All hail the Mothers' Union

Of all the things that are worrying me about moving to Bosnia there is one that stands out above all others. Here, in the UK, I have quite a well developed network of friends with children who can be relied upon to swoop to the rescue on those days when the toys are literally being thrown out of the pram. Today was one such day. A put on his best 3 year old I am atrocious face and was full of whinge and whine from the word go. Nothing was right, he didn't want to do anything, but also didn't want to do nothing. Battering his brother and hording every toy was leading to on-going screaming from both parties. D and I, already grumpy from packing, were not responding well.

This was a job for the Mothers Union. A few phone calls later and the boys and I were out in the woods with other toddlers and other adults and everyone was enjoying themselves. Admittedly the adult enjoyment was enhanced by the appearance of coffee and croissants from an enlightened Mummy, whilst the toddlers seemed to be happy to have other toddlers with whom to make mud pies. The day was rescued, sanity saved and everyone reached the end of the day tired, but happy.

The prospect of not having this network in Bosnia is simply terrifying. Furthermore, my Bosnian is pretty sketchy so not only do I need to find people with appropriately aged children who I like, but I have to find people with appropriately aged children who I like AND who speak English. I suspect it is going to take me a while. In the meantime, I'm fully expecting us to endure some dreadful days. I suspect it is the development of this network which will decide whether our time in Bosnia is a success or not.