The Naked Truth

A few random yet considered observations regarding our week in Provence:

1/ The bigger the car, the more stuff you manage to fill it with.
In the days when we used to travel in a cute four-seater Twingo, it would be packed to bursting when we set off on holiday. Now that we travel in a five-seater Megane, it is still packed to bursting when we set off on holiday.
To be fair, though, we have acquired an additional kid since the Twingo era and - as every parent knows - the smaller the kid, the more stuff he requires.

Luckily, we were several kilos lighter on the way back. The lost kilos corresponded to the quantity of blood sucked out of us by the hoards of mosquitos that were our loyal holiday companions.
Lesson learnt: when the floods subside, the mosquitos come out of the woodwork (and swamps).


2/ Holidaying with young kids is not the same as holidaying among adults. The blandest of platitudes, perhaps, but worth noting anyway.
For the first time, I was glad that our holiday house was part of a large circle of identical holiday houses, all containing a scarily similar reproduction of our own family: two parents plus two kids aged 3 and 1.
Once you put aside your mild panic, learning to serenely accept that yes, you ARE just like everyone else (as far as statistics are concerned): Mr and Mrs Average with their two kids, their buckets, spades, footballs and daily toils... then you realise how much easier life is when you are lumped with those like you.

Same routine, same bedtime, same struggles: all the kids can play together, happily beating each other up over who's turn it is to put sand in the plastic truck that is favoured by all, while the parents look on, glassy-eyed.
Eveyone's kids are shouting and screeching by 8.30 a.m., but for once, it's OK: we're all in the same boat.


3/ Despite the points made in 2/ (above), I am not quite the same as other mothers.
I make this observation without smugness or malice: it is simply that, an observation.
A week's exposure to the parenting techniques of others is an amazing experience - one which I threw myself into wholeheartedly, making almost constant internal notes about what works, what doesn't work, and all the rest.

It was in the course of this research that I became aware of the subtle difference between myself and the other mothers: I don't get involved as much as they do.
As I lay back in my sun lounger, half an eye on BB as he pottered around the pool, I noticed that I was the ONLY mother not knee-deep in the pool itself, chattering away to the swarm of kiddies, enthusiastically filling buckets with water, making excited suggestions about what games should be played next, drawing in my breath sharply and admonishing every time a scrap broke out, or a kid dared to break into a trot "dangerously" close to the poolside.

Is this a good thing or a bad thing?
Probably neither, I decided in the end: it's simply about style.
The thing is: you are who you are, for better and for worse.
And a "laissez faire" mum like me can't be forced to intervene if she doesn't feel it's necessary, even when subjected to a rather pointed stare from what I might term an "intervening mum".
Let them decide for themselves what they want to play, let them fight their own little battles over who gets the truck (as long as they're not hurting each other): surely all this is character forming?
That's my view as it stands today, anyway.
But since I am a mother-in-the-making... don't be surprised if next year's holiday produces a new philosophy.