Weekend fun

So I was thinking this morning...is it a city thing, a modern thing or how come weekends is about the children having fun? When I grew up, weekends were about relaxing at home. We rarely went anywhere (except church and Sundayschool) and visiting friends up the street. Since we lived in the middle of nowhere, there was no family close by to visit. Not even for a weekend away. We rarely went anywhere for a whole weekend. My parents friends would visit us, or my mom would go to her friend while we lounged around at home, doing nothing. Or my dad would be off in town while we stayed home with my mom. We really never went anywhere much. Now, this could sound like a complaint, but I really, really LOVED it. I am such a homebody. I was happiest when I could try to finish about 4 or 5 Afrikaans love story books (about 150 pages each) from Friday afternoon until Sunday evening. It was some of THE happiest times in my life. Especially during winter, when I would lay in the gorgeous warm sunshine coming through the floor-to-ceiling windows and glass door we had in the livingroom. I would throw my pillow down, get a bowel of fruit and just lay there all day, reading and snacking. Ag man, that was the life!! I totally miss that.

Now, life is all about our children. Like this past weekend. It started off on Saturday morning with a swimming party. Fortunately, it was friends of ours who's little girls had their birthdays, so at least I knew most of the mommies there so I too had fun chatting. The kids of course had a ball in the swimming pool. Fortunately it was a scorching hot day, not like today (raining!).

Then, we quickly went home to chuck the swimming costumes and then off we went, for another children's party at McDonalds. Again, the kids had a ball. Who wouldn't? You get yummy take-aways, a toy, cake, play at the playground, etc. Unfortunately Boeboe had her first meltdown in ages! She totally lost it, and me too. It ended with me giving her one smack on the bum in public...:-( I shouldn't have, I know. But gosh, when she keeps on screaming and crying as loud as she possibly can, while you feel like you can just stick your head in a hole somewhere to hide your burning cheeks, you don't really have much patience! And I was hot and irritated after spending the whole day at children's parties and wished to be home already.

Then, on Sunday we took my dad and stepmom out for breakfast, so again the children had a ball. Played on the Spur playground, ate pizza (yes, for breakfast! In my defence, we did give them cereal before we left the house, LOL) and got balloons. From Spur we went to a little Petting Zoo where we met up with friends for a picnic. The children had an absolute ball. Though, I seriously doubt that the chicks appreciated the seven 3-year olds as much as the toddlers appreciated the chicks...LOL.

Here's some piccies of the petting zoo:


Boeboe feeding a rabbit some cabbage leafs...each person in the zoo is given 2 buckets of food for the animals



Monkeyman giving a rabbit some carrots

Mr N giving the goat some bread

Careful! They're so hungry they just bite down!

Lots of tortoises roaming all over the little zoo

Monkeyman cuddling a little chick...look how the others all hide in the corner. Shame, poor things!

Ah, got you!

Chicks in the bucket...:-) Here's Boeboe, Mr N and Monkeyman.

Monkeyman dumping the rest of his birdseed

My shy, gentle, kind boy.

A very tired monkeyman, full of dust because he had some fun in the sand

So, as you can see, even a visit with friends turns out to be all about the children. How and why did that happen? I wasn't raised that way? So, is it a modern thing? Or is it a city thing? I've never lived in a city until I was 18. So it's sometimes difficult for me to distinguish what's modern ways, and what's city ways. Though, I seriously doubt that my parents would have acted any differenty even if they raised us in the city. Children did NOT dictate their weekends or plans. Children were supposed to be seen, not heard, LOL. Wish I could get that as right as my parents did. Why do I let my children walk all over me?? Why are we so scared to just say NO. To toys, sweets, parties, school events, everything. We sigh and we moan, but we still just do it. Again with the school's revue end of 3rd term. I'm seriously NOT in the mood for this. But do I say NO? Uh-uh. Never. How would you poor child feel...standing alone, watching all the other kids participate in the revue? Of course we can't do that to them. Same goes for when they get to put on red&white for valentines day. Do we say NO, we're NOT paying the R10 or R20 for them to not wear school clothes? No, we pay while moaning all the way. Because we can't let our kids be the only ones in school clothes while the rest is wearing white and red. Again with a Blue Bulls game. We pay the R10 for them to wear Blue to school. And on "Loslit dag"...we pay. And for spring day. And and and. It just goes on and on. We go out of our way to just make sure our kids "fit in". That they don't stand out.

So who's really giving in to peer pressure? Is it really the kids? Or the parents? And what does that teach our kids? That we must conform and "fit in" at ALL costs? That to stand out, be different, is wrong? Gosh, I wish my mom still lived. I would have loved to ask her where am I going wrong? How did they keep us sane and still raised us with THEIR values, and not with what society pressurise you to do.