Fri Dad had another one of his unplanned vacations last week, but that's okay because I was inspired to write this little number whilse I was away.
As followers of Laura's blog will know, we took two young ladies to Summer In The City 2014. If you don't follow Laura's blog, that's what we did. Summer In The City is a HUGE conventions for YouTube channel owners who vlog, make music, films, express hobbies and all sorts of stuff. All ages range in YouTubers, however, the fan base was a young group...mostly early teens.
Laura and I were given the responsibility of chaperoning these two 15/16 year old girls for the weekend so they could enjoy themselves and get all fangirly as everyone pretty much did.
I said to Laura the day before 'this is going to be easy. Max always needs our attention, all we gotta' do is...well nothing, they're almost adults.'.
Though so used to being hands on, we were ready to hit AutoPilot. How stupid we were to think so.
The whole weekend, we were separated. Yes, we knew that we would, 8,000 people is a lot of people to get lost in and amongst. As another persons parent, you don't think you'll be so concerned, but being given the responsibility you DO!
I can't think of enough times I spent in the queue talking to them about taking everyones number, making sure everyone used their phone little and made sure we had a meeting point.
I thought for certain we'd receive texts and calls saying their lost, someone stole something, something's gone missing or a potential fight might kick off between them over schedule clashes.
In the end, it was the complete reverse. I spent the whole time texting to see if they were okay, if they had eaten and if they needed anything. I wasn't overly concerned about the event as I knew little of the people their. I was too busy arranging taxi's to and from the venue, making sure everything else was fine with Laura.
We then hit disaster the following day when we got caught in heavy rain during the queue to get in. NO ONE WAS PREPARED FOR IT, especially me. I was wearing only a white tee on top, before the day begun everyone could naturally make the shape of my nipples with their cold, wet hands.
We had a lot of trouble making sure everyone had dried off, gotten dry clothes from the merch stand (needs must. I bought a tee I didn't particularly want, but whatever saved any nipple heckles).
We had problems making sure they had everything together from the overnight stay, making sure they kept fragile bits safe such as posters caught in the rain.
I remember at one point walking around with Laura who was pretty annoyed that it was hassle. That being said, the girls WERE well behaved and not a serious issue throughout the weekend.
Eventually we got ourselves home and had our son back in our desperate arms. We had missed the little man, even with his major hyper activity from too much sweets (thanks, Nan).
I remember laying in bed and realising something, you never really stop parenting and parenting gets no easier as the child at hand gets older. You always feel like you need to be on your toes about things and you remain paranoid that something WILL go wrong. Either way, parenting is a task done only by the passionate...and the slightly crazy.
That;s all for this weekend. Take the time to give your children a big hug and say that they're great fun at the age they are, because you'll grow together and learn more and more about each other and learn to love each stage (even when they get 'too cool' to love you).
Have a great weekend!
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