mettes pottery

Holiday time...

Do you ever get the feeling that you are not really in charge ? Well we do.

I love this little boy so much but he is 2½ years old and thinks he knows how everything should be done. Like a little master he is telling us what to do and especially what not to do...NO NO NO are words we hear quite often. It is also a lot of fun but one really has to gain the control at least to avoid the judging from other people out there in holiday country. An advice from a friend with three kids was : Dont forget to bring your wallet,cause there is no such thing to solve a conflict as...icecream... !!! She is right ...

We went on a short trip to Givskud zoo and decided to stay at the hostel there for one night. Just relax and figure out all the practical stuff down the road. Just let the kid sleep when he is tired and will fall asleep all by himself. Eat whatever he wants, whenever he wants it. And so on... But no it doesn´t function that way. Guess what... He didnt wanted to take his nap so we skipped it. The result was one angry little kiddo terrorizing the hole zoo and probably also causing the mother elephant to the cute little Dumbo to neglect her little baby. Great frustration for the biologist who had spend so much time on this project ( NOT really the truth but could have been... ) . So we went to the restaurant. The buffet had just closed so we had a not so good pizza trying to make the combination tired kid and restaurants not to tiring.

Next day was great. Seth had a good time. He is not so interested in all the exotic animals but birds and fishes... thats his thing...

The place is great. Big enough to make it possible to have a nice and relaxing time. It can be very streesing to be in crowded places with kids. Grown ups get this very tired look on their face and the childrens are fighting over the few toys, screaming and crying. In the zoo is a huge play area with lots of space and toys and many seating areas under shady trees. The more foreseeable parent had coolers with food and drink in their wagons. They were eating sandwiches, drinking coffee and having homemade cake. well I don´t know if it was homemade but the next time we go we will do the same and yes, the cake will be homemade. The kids were playing happily aronud. One could probably spend 3 enjoyable hours in that place reading books and perhaps knitting...




So the conclusion is : Bring food and a cooler. Dont skip naps and bedtime procedures. Plan just eneough to let the trip be as unplanned as possible. Am I making any sense...?
You see you are out of the usual enviroment and all the habits are out of the game for a while. Thats a good thing but it can also put you in some type survival situation ( a pretty strong word but you know what I mean... ) where you spend all the time on things like : Where can we eat ? Buy diapers ? Wash little sticky fingers and so on. So here it goes, besides the usual stuff here are some essential things to bring on a two day trip to the zoo ( or some other place... ) :

In my handbag: kleenex, towelettes, cash for icecream, one ( maybe two... ) diaper.

Dont forget to get the wagon equipped with small blanket, little pillow, sunhat, a book for John and knitting for me and offcourse the cooler with food and drink.

In the car:

One box with toys for Seth. One box with toys for me. One box with- going on a trip- gear. I will tell you more about these boxes another time...

Electrical Cooler with food to bring to hostels or wherever we are staying. A smaller normal cooler to bring to parks and so.




Bye bye...