Oh, the joys of travelling with two young children, a dog and two grandparents, who good-naturedly offered to take us away to the sea for a few days whilst Daddy is away. It took about two hours to pile all the luggage and the above passengers into the now, bursting at the seams car only to find that my son had another dirty nappy and my daughter needed another visit to the loo. Finally we were on our way to the coast, a three hour journey, and it was already nearly lunch-time.
I had always envisaged the 'how babies are made' question to come at a time when I could carefully mull over my answer and present the facts in a way that didn't freak my daughter out. But when you are driving on the M25 with a toddler loudly protesting at being strapped in his car seat, a Grandpa telling you when to break, speed up and indicate, a Grandma nervously asking if you've seen the enormous lorry on your inside and a dog barking at a motorbike on your tail, any ability to think up a maintaining innocence for as long as possible but truthful answer flies out of the window. So far I had managed to avoid an in depth description by telling my daughter that Mummy and Daddy have a special cuddle and because they love each other so much, they are lucky enough to have made two wonderful babies. This was obviously no longer satisfying her curiosity and the next step was the "but what happens when you have a special cuddle to get the baby inside you?" question. Despite the odds, my multi-tasking abilities were on form and I managed to abate her by telling her that male and female body parts entwine together which makes the baby. So now I'm just waiting for the "which body parts exactly?" and hopefully this time it won't be in front of Grandma and Grandpa.
After the previous bout of travel sickness that afflicted my son, when he announced that his "tum, hurt", I thought we could be in for another dousing. Five people in a car smelling of dog and sick would be almost too much to bear. Fortunately disaster was averted with a couple of digestive biscuits. Either my son is a considerate little lad with the foresight to warn his mother of impending doom, or he's worked out that claiming you feel sick gets action, and fast.
Finally, we arrived just before tea time and went straight to the beach. Relishing their freedom, the kids and the dog ran in and out of the sea getting covered in sand and water. This was the kind of mess that didn't bother me in the slightest even though by the end of the two days the car had a stench of wet dog and seaweed and was covered in sand. Seeing two happy kids enjoying the simplest pleasures in life was more than worth carrying a screaming, wet toddler back to the car, it was worth the dog being sick from swallowing too much sea water, it was worth the tedious journey. It was what life was really about.
No comments:
Post a Comment