15-03-17 Umm Al Sheif Park

Wednesday 15th March 2017

Early hours this morning Erroll flew a long haul long leading into a week-long layover starting off in Thailand then Sydney then New Zealand then Brisbane then back to Thailand and finally home on the 21st. Kingsley woke and asked where Ba-Bah was this morning, calling out for him throughout the house, moving from room to room till he needed to do a wee and I dragged myself out of bed to attend to the little man before explaining that his Ba-Bah has gone to work – flying in his airplane –  and it’ll be me and him for the day.

Kingsley has previously accepted this reason for his Ba-Bah’s long absences without so much as a moan or a grumble, as he does today. His wisdom on such matters – nary an argument against the matter – makes me content that the kid feels secure in this family. I of course compensate for Erroll’s absence with daily adventures to new parks and always squeeze in a visit to special spots like soft-play areas and toy stores, all of which we managed to by the time we got in this evening.

So our adventures (my overcompensation) took us to a playground equidistant from the Burj Al Arab and the Mall of the Emirates and conveniently located near the Gold & Diamond Park metro station; the Umm Al Sheif Playground. I used Googlemaps to get us there! By the time we had arrived at 3 PM the park was being used by the local primary school’s PE class; twenty children in the uniform blue sports top and shorts of their school being sent running round its track by a dashing young PE teach, a Mister So and So (missed his name; caught staring at his youthful good looks however).

At first Kingsley was incredibly excited to be among so many children. But his very own reality hits speedily, and he tells me that he ‘can’t play with the kids, because he is not wearing a blue top like they are.’ I of course screeched from thrill at his developing sense of logic. Running after the little man to give him hugs and to ever more compensate that he is an only child and not yet a school cultivating friends, Kingsley actually runs away from me I guess because he wants to be with the cool kids and no longer with his overbearing (but delightfully fun, may I add) Mumma. In fact later he would tell me that he wants to go to school soon, ‘when I grow up’ but when I remind him he will therefore be leaving me when he goes to school, he replies ‘I am still little, and only when I grow bigger will I go to school. But not now, I am little; now I stay with Mumma.’

After the park, and such conversations, of course Kingsley gets what he asks for: two Kinder chocolates and a tub of London Dairy vanilla bean ice ceam. The kid is going places.