Sally and I have met some great people sailing. Interesting people who we will probably always remember and have something in common with.
Iain and Vicki off of Dolphin (the 28ft 108 year old gaff rigged Scottish built fishing boat) are cruising with 2 small children (age 2 and 3).
These are the cutest kids and a great reminder of how Nicholas (my brother) and I grew up on the water.
With a broody fiancee and me up for a challenge, we offered to baby sit for Iain and Vicki. Vicki took us up on the offer in order for them to spend a night ashore to celebrate Iain's 40th birthday.
Sally and I were both looking forward to it as they are a great pair of fun, happy kids who are easy going.
Admittedly, this was probably not the best day for the job as we were recovering from the effects of too many "happy birthday Sally" drinks the night before.
Never the less, little Petra and Finn were dropped off at 1pm and we were to deposit them back with their parents 23 hours later in the town of Willemstad (Curacao).
We had a full day planned, Sally had only recently managed to remove her head from the toilet bowl and I was eating Ibuprofen like skittles.
So for the first hour or four we sat them in front of the laptop so they could watch Finding Nemo.
This seemed very familiar, as Nick and I used to love going to Nana's (my grandmother's) to spend an entire day watching movies that she had taped for us.
This also got us thinking about how many parents plonk their kids in front of the TV or Playstation / XBox etc as a "distraction device" just to give them some peace and quiet. We no longer judge these people!
As soon as moving pictures on the screen stops, these little attention machines go into over drive. And this is BEFORE we had given them any sugar. There was all sorts of games to play. Petra is at that age where she is a walking talking echo of her big brother. Everything he does or touches or says is mimicked. Adorable.
They are also very sweet with each other. They give each other cuddles and are pretty good with sharing etc.
But they are kids. And love to play and wrestle and jump on things. Sally and I tagged each other in to watch over them. Making sure they did not fall overboard was our main concern. The odd fall down the companion way stairs resulted in floods of tears until concentration was broken by something of more interesting than the growing bump on the back of the head.
Long story short, we looked after little Finn and Petra for 23 hours. In which time we were on our boat, went fishing, went to the park, raced around in the dinghy, went to town with a massive pushchair and a surly bus driver. Changed 2 nappies (Petra is almost potty trained), and wiped bums post potty experiences (this occurred on the foredeck and was probably an unusual sight for the rest of the anchorage). Sleeping time was punctuated by bursts of restless children who would wake in unfamiliar surrounds and need a cuddle. Petra eventually spent the night in our bunk between us with me trying to stop her from falling out without waking her. We were exhausted! But would we do it all again…hell yeah! We look forward to the next time Dolphin need us to babysit.
Me, having never done the whole baby sitting thing before, was not only better informed about what it is to be a parent, but that much more appreciative of my own parents.
My brother and I were a nightmare compared to these little angels. We were constantly squabbling (brotherly rivalry commenced from year one), breaking things or just plain testing our mothers patience. Often my father would work away, so mother would be a single mother, managing 2 little brats. God knows how she did it.
She must have the patience of a saint. She has just had her 60th birthday (she is not precious about her age) and in all these years, i have never understood the work that goes into looking after children. When we were on the boat cruising, she was always doing things like reading to us, playing, etc. Our distraction device back then was a pile of lego. Where she found the energy one can only imagine when there was also baking, washing and all those other things that she did.
Here is to you parents. Especially you mom. I love you.
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