I'm a single mum and dd (nearly 4) and I are together practically all the time. As the sun sets, I like to have a glass of wine while cooking dinner and ring my mum or a friend, but DD WILL NOT LET ME TALK ON THE PHONE! She pulls out the connection, she somehow accesses the scissors (which I keep on top of the fridge) and starts doing things like cutting up her clothes while I'm not looking.
I must admit, after a whole day of no-one to talk to except dd, I relish an evening chat with a grown up, and generally put on a DVD or cut out animal pix for her to glue in her scrapbook or get out the paintbox and invite her to have a wig-out with the paint....no avail. She follows me around while I'm on the phone, 'bounces' me like Tigger, and generally does everything she can to make a phone call impossible. Also, I have to deal with quite a lot of work-related email stuff: I'm fine with her sitting on my knee but she insists on tinkering with the keyboard and thus emails too are really hard. I argue with her: 'look, if you JUST GIVE ME FIVE MINUTES I'll be done with this stupid email and then we can play, cuddle etc'. But this does not persuade her. She gets emotionally manipulative (I know that sounds like a mean thing to say about a kid so young, but that is how it feels): she wails 'be KIND to me Mummy! CUDDLE me Mummy!' She gets loads of cuddles and I try to play with her as much as I can.
I think part of the problem is that it's just the two of us stuck in a tiny flat - nothing for her to do except watch tv, draw or paint (which she enjoys) but no outside stuff, except for the pool. There's a pool in my flat complex, even though it is a pretty crummy block (we're in Australia: pools in crummy blocks of flats are quite normal, not a 'luxury'). And indeed we've had so much fun in the pool since she got a decent frog-floatie for Christmas: even though she can't yet swim, she can have a good time by herself with her floatie while I swim or keep an eye on her while sunbaking. The pool was SO tedious when I had to carry her around the whole time - sometimes little things (like a floatie) can make a big difference.
But now we can both enjoy a dip. All the same, the flat itself is horrid, the tenants are dodgy, I'm really paranoid about security etc...
Basically I think I need a backyard. Or at least a courtyard and a sprinkler. But rents have skyrocketed recently. I'm going off my skull- we both are, we're stir-crazy. We pointlessly catch trains to unlikely places just for the sake of getting out of the place.
But the main problem is that dd won't let me talk to grown ups, all of a sudden she's hugely clingy, which she never was before (eg demands to be carried around all the time) and basically in this confined, roach-infested space I'm just getting tigger-bounced and sometimes smacked or punched. When she hits me, I always put her in her room for 3 minutes, but it doesn't seem to be working as a disciplinary measure.
My ex (dd's dad) asked me suspiciously the other day 'why do you have all those bruises on your legs?' and I said because she wants to PLAYFIGHT all the time and YOU encourage it (which he does - it seems to be his main way of showing phsycial affection - having playfights).
I accept that being bounced and harassed is pretty much part of the deal, but really, she won't even let me have a cup of tea in peace in the morning.
What to do?