Wednesday 24 August 2011

The perfect age

This week ds1 has been at Rock School from 9am-4pm. Being a long-haired cool rock dude (or whatever they are now in 2011) he has thoroughly immersed himself in the world of rock, borrowing one of the teacher's electric guitars, and their drum kit and er...doing his stuff. And I've been keeping well out of the way trying not to cramp his street cred with my motherisms.

In order to save fuel to-ing and fro-ing I have been left with the job of entertaining his siblings in the viccinity for 6 hours a day on a not-too-huge budget. So far this has involved a large park, a Nature Reserve, a town museum, a swimming pool, and today a bowling alley, a soft play centre and a chapel with WWI-inspired mural paintings. It's half-way through the week and I'm knackered!

Today, resorting to bowling and soft play seemed a cop-out, but it was a mighty bargain: kids bowl for £1 and buy-one-get-one-free for soft play - how cheap am I? That is, a bargain if you exclude the copious amounts of diet coke I drunk...and the hot dogs...I figure as we're not off on our hols this year, splashing out on cheap crappy entertainment for one week is a sort-of substitute for a wet week somewhere grey under canvas. Besides, I know people with kids in school spend more in a weekend entertaining their kids than I spend the whole summer. See, I can justify anything, me.

But I confess it did make a relaxing change to sit and read and let small people (actually not-so-small anymore) get on with running themselves stupid for 3 hours. Just as they get almost too old for soft play centres it becomes the perfect time to take them. None of that nappy changing, wet pants, lost socks, breastfeeding, rescuing toddler from high-place and finding you can't squeeze your bum through the hole to get him/her, none of that irritating 'Look at me! Look at me!' or 'Mummy help me' stuff.

Oh yes, 10 and 7 years old. The perfect age for soft play. This is the life. (However if I was planning on many repeat sessions I think I'd have to take ear plugs to filter out the high-pitched child-squeal-screams that rebound surprisingly well off of something that is supposed to be 'soft' play equipment. )

And tomorrow? Hmm...maybe more bowling...another museum...another park...another book and a gallon of diet pepsi.

1 comment:

Homeschool family said...

Thank you! I have a throbbing headache, and you made me smile. Its great that all 3 are still have loads of fun even though they are doing different things. oh to be at a teen rock camp........