07-03-17 Birthday Month at Safa Park 2

Tuesday 7th March 2017

Happy birthday month little lion!

As a treat to ourselves we decide to spent the entire day exploring Dubai precincts that are new to us. Today it was Safa Park 2 – an oasis for kiddies (three separate play areas plus basketball, volleyball and soccer pitches within a gorgeous, well manicured and green enclosure with best of all (for parents) a coffee shop that serves icecreams, under a rotunda).

There is inevitably an incident which needs reporting (or ignoring more likely ) when at such parks. Erroll was close at hand when Kingsley shoved another kiddo as a group of them played on a jungle gym. According to Erroll the play was friendly yet energetic and the many toddlers were enjoying the physicality of it until one of them started with the tears and then accused Kingsley of throwing his weight around (which is highly likely). The child’s mother races over (as she would be expected to) hears what ‘happened’ then scowls and takes her child away chastising Kingsley (in thick Scottish accent) which caused the rest of the mothers to take their children away from the offender. The children were all much older than Kingsley and wearing school uniforms Erroll noted later with slight contempt.

Well you can imagine through what gritted teeth Erroll told me this tale. Let kids be kids is how we continue to position the trials and tribulations of childhood to our friends and we have never ever experienced Kingsley come up to us to tattle-tale on another kiddo. Its a behaviour a) we have not modeled, and b) nip in the bud. A knock here and a shove there does not mean Kingsley (or any kid for that matter) is a ferine. There is no intent to injure or any malice in the act. It means only that exuberance at play tips over into a hormonal surge of the shoulder or the hip, into another child’s body. At home its called ‘roughhouse play’ and recommended by child psychologists.

However I must accept that all parents have their personal ways to parent and my laissez-faire approach would grate on many a mother’s nerves. The brilliance of childhood and outdoor parks like Safa 2 is that there will always be kids who like the way Kingsley plays, and indeed that is what happened soon after the ‘incident’: Kingsley found his people! A most fortunate affair for someone as obsessed with our son ‘making friends’ as I am. Of course we end the park trip with Kingsley’s own tears  – he could stay playing till midnight is allowed – but a vanilla cornetto went some way in easing the injustice of leaving new friends made.

Here is our day celebrating Kingsley turning 3 years and 3 months…