We take our kids out of school for a holiday at least one week a year.
Our reasoning is simple: we can’t afford premium rates at places like the Gold Coast. And, as importantly, I hate crowds.
Plus I’ve always justified this by saying the kids can learn more by spending a few days with us experiencing things than in a classroom.
Like today, when we went to Seaworld for a few hours so Tracey could do some research for a wedding she’s shooting there next year and the kids and I marveled at the immense beauty of the polar bear and cute little penguins and then tried our hand at a few rides. And then, when Tracey joined us, we made our way to the Castaway Bay where the lure of the Battle Ships proved too much for the kids. The whole family boarded while I volunteered to stay behind with the bags…
…and then I casually walked around to the first water canon.
“Where’s Dad?” I heard Master10 ask just before I soaked them!
“I had the three year old on my lap,” Tracey complained to me when they got off. She was wetter than a venue at a Manpower performance. “That would have been enough for me to avoid pointing the water gun at you.”
She’d have made a poor pirate.
So our kids learned a valuable lesson in not taking people at their word or using infants as human shields.
And, as a bonus, got to fire their own water canons back at their old man until he was as drenched as the bear.
Can’t do that at school.
But the validity of my argument on how smarts they’ll get spending time with us would have been much more solid without this conversation in the car as we drove away.
“So what did you learn today?” I asked the kids, thinking I’d get something about the penguins or bears or dolphins or sharks.
“Aussie World is awesome!” Miss11 shouted, and the other four kids screamed their agreeance.
Which, considering we were at Seaworld, I have to concede blows my argument out of the water more effectively than Captain Jack Sparrow on the Black Pearl.
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~ raising a family on little more than laughs ~
not a sponsored post – we paid for everything just like normal folk
