[Closed] Introvert Parents - A little help please

How on earth do you balance your needs for silence and solitude with the constant background hubbub of children's TV and general fed uppedness in the second week of school hols...?

I had never been one for kids and purposely steered clear of the possibility for a long time, but for the past two years have been experiencing the joys of parenthood with the added issues not being a dad adds!

Most of the time she is lovely, but at the age nearly 10, she is becoming prone to - shall we say - outbursts...

Yesterday we had a trip to diggerland and although it was raining for most of the day, we had a really good time once we encouraged her to try something other than the very expensive coin operated indoor go-karts...

Today we're at my house and she is like Kevin (a la Harry Enfield) and refuses to take part in any activity - she only has an interest in watching crap kids TV at ear splitting volume... she did ask if we could walk my dogs, but after leaving the house - decided against that after only 100yds.

I continued to take the dogs as her and her mum returned home as they were understandably less keen on the idea of a 200 yard walk!

When I got back, she was back to the TV and griping about wanting to go to London for the science museum as we had mentioned that as a possibility if the weather wasn't going to permit a(n enjoyable) trip to the seaside. Nothing had been planned and the train would have to be booked 24hrs in advance to make it feasible, but all of a sudden it was the most important thing in the world.

We (MrsLerk and I) had already spoken about the idea given the forecast and decided that given the performance yesterday that a fifteen hour day with lots of walking would likely be too much.

With the youngun in a strop, my head banging with TV adverts encouraging the next toy to end up in the charity bags and MrsLerk close to tears, I motioned MrsLerk upstairs for a cuddle and some quiet. Cue young one coming up and continuing the whining and MrsLerk heading back downstairs in tears.

Fortunately at that point I got a minute or two of timeout to calm down - but seriously, without heading out on the bike every half an hour, how on earth do you all manage...?