Kayaking

JJ got invited to a birthday party recently and he could bring an adult of his choice. His choice was me of course, well actually it wasn’t but he got me anyway, and we took along my fella too.

It was so we could all go kayaking and there needed to be adults there to be the skippers of the kayaks.

Two of the women there were too frightened to be the skippers so it’s lucky we had a spare adult, and lucky that two adults and a child could fit in a couple of the kayaks. You can see us above trying out the boats to make sure we could reach the pedals for the rudder.

It’s been a long time since I paddled a boat so I was a bit nervous but thought I’d muddle my way through it. I’m sure there’s a way of paddling so your lap doesn’t get completely wet but I didn’t get that lesson.

We went through the mangroves which were pretty amazing and a little bit hard to negotiate through when you’re not a very experienced kayaker.

Because only one party could go through at a time when we came back out there was another group waiting to go in. I thought I had it sussed out to steer past the low branches but I didn’t quite make it and went too close to them. An expletive or two left my mouth and my son apologised to the group for his mum swearing. I was quite embarrassed that we’d drawn so much attention to ourselves. But paddle on we did.

What I wasn’t able to capture with my camera was the dolphin who swam near us nearly the whole way and came out of the water every now and then. He came pretty close to us.

After we’d done the mangroves JJ and I had pretty much worked out how to get some speed happening with the kayak and had a race back to the dock.

We did stop near the end to give my camera to my fella so he could take some photos of myself and JJ which we hardly ever get as I’m more comfortable behind the camera than in front of it.

Although JJ was pretty good while we were in the boat he was a bit silly once we got out of it and I ended up putting him in the car so he could calm down. Even on the way home I’d had enough and asked him to be quiet but he’s not one to be very quiet and it had been quite a tiring day and I was worn down.

This was the night that my fella (let’s call him the surfer as that’s what he does in his spare time) and I had a discussion about whether I thought he oversteps the mark in disciplining JJ. No, I don’t think he does, and he’s not on his back the whole time either. He backs up what I do and say with JJ and to be quite honest it’s really good to have that backup for a change. Maybe it will make things sink in a bit quicker with him having someone other than his mum saying the same things to him.

It was hard not to compare my noisy JJ with a classmate that we took to the party who was really well behaved the whole time and very courteous and mostly quiet. A complete contrast! Sometimes I feel like it’s a never ending battle with JJ having to explain things over and over and over without them ever seeming to sink in. This is why I try to remember the good stuff he does and to emphasise that to him.