Trying to figure out what the hell to do with my daughter over the summer holiday has had me tearing my hair out. There are things that I dismissed out of hand as being inappropriate because of the duration (7 hour football training), the noise (ten pin bowling), or her capability (she can’t swim).
This seemed like a reasonable thing to do, as by the end of term she found even an hour of cheerleading too much, and a morning in the park with her friends made her fragile for the rest of the day – fragile like a bomb, not like a flower. One wrong move and she turned into a tantruming, screaming demon.
We still go to the pool several times a week, but the one we use doesn’t blast music and doesn’t have inflatables or flumes in it. Constant exposure to water with nothing to do but swim has improved her confidence in water, to the point that she is now insisting we need to visit water slides. Wonderful. I have no idea where any are, so I will be spending most the day contacting friends who have grown up in the area I now live, and googling. The aforementioned pool is, unsurprisingly, in a gym complex. Walking out, she saw the ads for the kids club including the football training. Announcing she wants to do that, I clarify that she A. Knows what football is, and B. Understands that this is from 9 am to 4pm…. Well ok.
So, for the first session I spend the entire time chilling out in the gym pool, spa, workout floor and finally the lounge/cafe/ Diogenes club. I will be honest I spent at least 5 hours in the cafe – expecting to get an announcement to collect her at any moment. When 4pm rolled around I went to collect her, only to be told that she’s had a wonderful time, was only over stimulated once and was an angel the whole time. I walk over to her and she greets me with ‘Hi mama, can we go to the pool?’ So, not really tired out. She’s there again today, and I’m enjoying breakfast in the cafe. It’s a hard life.
Her Direct Payment worker had her yesterday, and took her bowling. I had put her ear defenders in her bag, but apparently she loved it. I picked her up and she was bubbling about everything. I’m not too sure how long this will continue, and I’m sure at some point she will be over reached, but what I have learnt is that just because it doesn’t make sense to us, doesn’t mean it won’t make sense to them.
So we’re off to the water flumes tomorrow. Where’d I leave my ear plugs?
Raising the Modern Fae 