does it look like i like your kids?
in the six months when we planned, cancelled, planned, cancelled, planned and finally paid for this holiday, magnificent and i were resigned to the fact that while we were here, we would be on parent alert. this was not a couples lovey dovey holiday, at least not between 7am-pm. this was suburbia goes to the beach. forget the beach novels, the beach bag is filled with kids toys, cups, and kids needs. there is no reading when you have kids at the pool. besides upsetting our kids, who want us in the pool with them, it would also be kind of rude to our fellow holiday-ers. how fun is it to listen to kids trying to get their parents attention when their parents are locked in vanity fair (even a boring, sans dominick dunne episode) or a men’s health? it is irritating because the kids will just increase the volume tone until the parents finally, exasperated look up and say, WHAT? so no, we wouldn’t do that, to our kids, ourselves or the people around us.
with no false expectations, every day magnificent and i take the kids to breakfast, stopping en route to claim el primo kids poolside beach chairs. not many of our fellow le meridien holidayers are awake at 7am, so we have the best seats to choose from. to be fair, there is no shortage of pool in this resort:
www.lemeridien.com/phuketbeachresort
and then we’re off to breakfast.
afterwards, we might explore the beach for a bit, but it is always handy to be near a bathroom, as all four are very regular morning time people these days. we found an eel the other morning, it was dead which was a good lesson for sebastian on how eels can’t breathe oxygen, but people do, and i took some great pictures of it’s little teeth. there is a place to rock climb, but young seb is too, well, young.
so we head back to the pool which is the only place the kids want to be anyway. we have staked out this circular pool which opens into one of the wider pools as our place. jasper loves "swimming" around the sitting area of the circle, the girls are getting braver and practise their "swimming walk" to and fro across the circular pool. seb is happy practising his front crawl and i have bitten a hole through my bottom lip as i have managed not to lecture him on how he could be so much more effective if he only straightened his legs when he kicked.yay me.
all the kids, except jasper, being swung in the water. this is a great way to get their faces a little wet. we either play tick tock tick tock im a little cuckoo clock, and then dunk them under, or my bonnie lies over the ocean, and lift them in and under the water. (exhausting).
now when we do this, a respectful or hyper little circle of other kids tends to gather around us demanding that we give them a go. same with when i am launching seb off my knees or charles and i are throwing him in the water. kids love this stuff. they did three decades ago when i was the launchee, and they do now when i am the launcher. i will vault the kid in the water a few times, but it’s tough throwing 40lbs of kid into the water (when you’re already in the water), and i start looking around for the kids parents.
the kids are around 3-6 years of age. the younger ones have arm bands and are paddling around, the older ones swimming. but where are the parents?
i can’t tell. magnificent, mo, myself and the aquafit instructor are the only people in the pool right now. where is everyone else? everyone else is reading. occasionally looking up, but not really.
i am not kidding myself, if i for one moment thought that my kids were self sufficient in the water i would be heading back to the beach chair and opening a book. but when the sole parents in the water suddenly become the kids club, am i a bad person because i begrudge looking after all the other kids? i’m here to spend time with MINE. to watch them blow bubbles, to encourage them to put their faces under water and do the arrow float. to take THEM to the bathroom.
we have 2 days left here….how should i handle this??
thanks in advance.
