mydarlingdevils

If at first you don’t succeed try try…screw it – just bribe them

Recently we went for 5 days to the Atlantis in the Bahamas with my wife’s family. Now, let me tell you – there are two types of kids. Ones that try different games and go on different rides. These are the ones that will see a kiddie pool slide and get really excited or see a bunch of kids playing and join in. Our boys are not those type! They are the second type of kid – they will just stand there and won’t try shit. They won’t try the slides and they won’t play games. You push and plead and beg but they won’t budge. If by some miracle you get them to try it, either they’ll pull a 180 and won’t stop doing it for 2 straight hours or they’ll make it so miserable with all their rules and exceptions and that you’ll wish you never started in the first place. We played catch in the pool with a beach ball. I threw the ball to J and when he missed catching it he blamed me for not throwing it properly. I threw the ball to K and he didn’t even try to catch the ball, he told me I was playing the game wrong (Catch!! – he told me I was playing catch wrong). I throw the ball to their cousin and he catches it and throws it back to me (he’s that first type of kid). They both start screaming at me to throw them the ball next – I decide to throw it in the middle and not pick any sides – let them duke it out I figure. That doesn’t quite work out cause the next thing I know, they are both crying and screaming at the top of their lungs. Their cousin decides to just walk away. My wife got up from the beach chair to see what all the fuss was about and I took my chance and quickly got out of there while I could – picture the roadrunner. I made up later by buying them both some ice cream. Ice Cream is like twizzlers – ice cream can solve pretty much anything.

One thing I was able to do is to convince the boys to go on the lazy river. Well, not the boys, just J. We asked K and he said no. K wouldn’t even go on a carousel until he was about 3, so I was not about to press my luck. He started to give my wife a hard time about leaving him, but once we told him that either he came with us on the ride or he stayed with his grandmother – he was like bye mommy. So, part of the lazy river was a wave pool…which was fun except half way down just as we were explaining to J that this was a lazy river and was safe, we got a giant wave that toppled all three of us over. Not so bad except J can’t swim yet. As soon as we went down, I felt like everything went to slow motion. I had a single mission. Find J. I saw him after a few seconds…the longest of my life. He was floating half way down like you might see seaweed floating in the ocean – just letting the water move him. I grabbed him and popped up to see this huge Bahamian on top of us asking if we were ok. He was perched on his life guard station and must have dived in as soon as we went under. J was in shock the rest of the ride. He didn’t say a word. We asked him if he was ok – he barely nodded and held tightly to the float – staring ahead as if his eyelids had stopped working. Even as we went thru the rest of the river, J kept quiet. Then came a series of waterfalls – we were scared shitless that J was going to flip again. My wife remarked “this lazy river is not very lazy” asked J if he wanted to go back which finally broke his silence. He opened his mouth to say yes and instead he broke down and started crying (my poor baby). We got back and discover that in our excitement over J agreeing to go on the ride we went on the rapids instead of the lazy river. Complete with posted signed that stated “Rapids – Caution, high intensity ride”. There goes any chance of us getting J to trying anything again for the next 6 years. Ooops. We both gave J a giant hug and told him that we were very proud of him. He was ok after we let him have 2 lollipops.

On our last day, we were at the kiddie pool getting in the last few hours of sun before we had to head to the airport. My nephew is 18 months old and he hit it off with this other kid who is about the same age. As they play with that very same beach ball the boy’s mother and my wife’s sister talk a little bit and watch the two boys play (they are both that first type of kid too I guess). This kid’s mother just happens to be Penelope Cruz. Soon it’s time for this little boy to go back to the room and they get him ready and get up and leave. He sees the ball as they are leaving and starts sobbing. My wife’s sister tells Penelope Cruz that we are leaving in about 10 minutes and were planning on leaving the ball so she should take it. She gave the cursory no, but as her son’s sobs start to escalate to a wail, she took the gift as ecstatically as if we had just given her a check for a million dollars. Goes to show, doesn’t matter how rich you are or how famous you are, on vacation parents will do just about anything to get their children to shut the f up. That could mean ice cream, lollipops, random overpriced toys or taking a $1 beach ball from strangers you just met.