Aqua Bumps of Stress

This christmas holidays was the first time my kids have spent any time at a beach with proper waves. Yes, really.

All the holidays they’ve ever had at the beach were while we were living in London so although they’ve holidayed on beaches in Europe – none of them were proper surf beaches (or even had sand for that matter).

So this christmas holidays we decided to change that. We spent the christmas week in a little coastal town on the NSW south coast. It was the same place I spent all my holidays as a child so I was really looking forward to taking our kids there.

Sort of.

For about six weeks before we left I started having nightmares and visions of one of them drowning or being carried out to sea in a rip. My over imaginative mind gets carried away sometimes and leaves me almost hyperventilating. So although I was excited about our holiday I was also dreading it at the same time.

I tried to explain over and over to the kids how dangerous the surf can be and what to do if you are caught in a rip but I think I over did it and they just stopped listening altogether. A bit like when you were a kid and you’d ignore it when your parents used to tell you over and over that your eyes would go square if you watched too much TV. Or was that just my parents? Never mind.

I was telling a friend of mine how worried I was about it and as she’d only recently brought her kids back to Australia after many years in Switzerland, she told me not to worry about it, that her kids were terrified of the waves and wouldn’t go further than a few metres out in the surf anyway so mine probably wouldn’t either.

However because of my tendencies to be a little dramatic I decided I wouldn’t risk it, so about a week before we left I changed tack.

“Um, kids. I probably should also mention you’ll have to watch out for the sharks”.

“Sharks? What do you mean”. Bingo, I had their attention.

“Oh I wouldn’t worry, it doesn’t happen very often but sometimes if you go out too far in the waves there are sharks there. Seriously it’s nothing, they’re only small sharks so you probably wouldn’t die, you might just lose a leg or an arm maybe so just don’t go out further than about one metre from the shore and you’ll be okay”. Righteo then.

Now you, Dear Reader, may think that was a mean thing to do. But I can assure you, that when you take four kids to the beach you can be guaranteed to return home that day with a giant migraine from the stress of keeping them all alive. Truly. So sometimes you gotta do what you gotta do to alleviate said stress.

Anyway, my plan backfired because in the end it turned out that my eldest son has no fear, is obviously not afraid of sharks, thinks he’s invincible, six foot tall and about ten stone heavier than he is and on the last day of our holiday he went out too far got taken out in a rip on his boogie board and had to be rescued by a fellow swimmer. All between the flags I might add.

I kid you not.

And that my friends is why I am almost certifiably insane.

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Anyhow, given my blog writing slackness of late (I know I’ve been slack, I will blame my children … They haven’t been doing anything ridiculous for me to write about lately), I promise 2014 will be a year of writing for me.

Hoping 2014 brings you lots of love, health, happiness and diamonds – and if you aren’t already running, or thinking about running then, chop chop – RUN!