Appogiae Production. Welcome back to another episode of am I About Mum?
Podcast?
The question we keep asking three times a.
Week, over and over again to remain in control of our own sanity, and then we just share it with others, with all our amazing network of listeners, so that they also feel like, as a collective, we're okay, We've got this.
Yeah, and we're in it together.
We're in it together and on the same What did we normally say. It's like we're on the same bus.
No, we're the same and we're on the same boat, boat.
Some form of transport headed in the same direction. Shit, am I a bad mum for not keeping up with the needs of my children. It's quite funny actually, because you know, you have moments where you are doing something that you've possibly done before numerous times, except this time, for some reason, it just feels different.
Right.
So we have talked so many times in the early days of this podcast about the days when you go to the beach with your kids. So I'm not talking about the days that you go to the beach with yourself and the book and the bottle of water and the one towel and you just enjoy being in the sun. I'm talking about children. Now.
It's two completely different days.
Remember back to the days Katie we were talking on
this podcast. We were lolling one day so hard over the fact that you'd been to the beach with your daughters and you'd take in the tent and you'd take in the sunscreen and the buckets and the shovels, and you had everything set up with them, right, and then you had that tent thing that you were sort of half in the shade, half in the sun, so you were prepared for everything that was going to be thrown at you, and you thought on that particular day, you would sit down and read a book. Right.
I always used to laugh at myself taking kids to the beach, seeing the book in my bag and then being like, what do I track that for? Like, that's a funny joke that I packed a book to come to the beach and they needed me constantly. And there was a mesh window in the back of this tent and they were occupied for like I think Jay had taken them in the water, and I knew they were going to be occupied for about ten minutes, Like I
had literally ten minutes. I laid down and I had my head like I was half in the tent, half out the tent, and I started reading the book and the dog came up behind the tent, lifted its leg up, and weed threw the mesh window, and I was like I had ten minutes.
And so now fast forward many years and we're still doing this podcast. But I was having a reflection moment sitting on the beach this time, and I was at the beach by myself with my two girls, and it was only like last week. And if you know Nooser Main Beach, it's pretty flat. There's waves, but it's not out of control. It's not like the open beaches. You put a little bit of a leeway there for kids to be able to swim. Anyway, we had a really good day in terms of weather, and so the flags
were a little bit more separated. Now I'm just having that moment where I was like, gosh, I remember the days where we'd talk about on the podcast everything that you'd need to bring to the beach with your kids at certain ages. So now I'm at that next part of going. I'm at what eleven and nine years old my girls and I'm getting to the beach and I
literally brought a bag, a beach bag with three towels. Yep. Now, back in the day, I would have packed an eskie with cold waters and food and snacks, everything that you can think of, like the kitchen sink. When you go to the beach when your kids are younger, you have to pack everything, you cool, kabana like whatever that cabana thing is to give you some shade. Now I barely packed. I don't even think my kids know they did. They had a hat on their head each.
I had one of those trolleys. You load the trolley up, but the trolley's never big enough because you've got so much it. You got the eski, you got the shade, You've got the boogie balls.
You've also got like fold up chests and have pockets that you can sit on and or you never you never sit in.
Yeah, you got the whole setup. Then you get your bag, you get your towels, you got everything like that. The amount of times I'd be struggling with that trolley because they're not meant for sem Like, what the hell is with that? They're beach trolleys and they are no good on sand once you start wheeling them on sand.
Yeah, soft sand.
It's like doing the workout. Like you go from the beach, you pack it all up. At the end, it's like stuff spilling out. You gotta go back. You're like struggling through the sand like.
It's to get each other up, though, but you've gotta be set up for hours, like hours.
I would have days at the beach and walking back towards the car up the beach on the sand felt like I was coming back from war.
I can imagine. But I in this particular day, I didn't take anything. Now, my kids are like well built children. I hadn't even put sunscreen on because I didn't have it. That's so bad of me, right, But also this particular day was like about twenty two or twenty three. But then this one particular child comes out and goes mom like, I've got the worst My skin's rubbing, and I'm thinking, oh, I got fucking nothing for you. I can't even fix that.
I can't even fix that because I'm not prepared for this. But I'm having that moment of going geez, I really really, you know, you get the leeway because they are not that little anymore. So then with that leeway, I've dropped the ball dropped. It completely. Just thought, oh fuck it. And then she comes out and she's like, Mom, I'm starving. I was like, just have some water. You'll be fine for a couple whiles. But again, Katie, I would have had the entire fridge contents.
Back in the day. So you've gone from all to the things. You've gone from packing the kitchen sink to a day at the beach without some screen.
Now, when I say packing the kitchen sink, I also like you anticipated the fact that I would read a book, and I've never read a book. I'm now I'm down there with two kids that are swimming during their own thing. I'm sitting there watching them. I'm having a coffee going, I'm sitting on a beach. It's blissful. Apart from the anyway, I won't start that, but it was like a family behind me with a screaming child. But apart from that,
like I was just like, this is blissful. I'm having a coffee, the coffee is hot, my kids are happy, they're playing together nicely at this stage, and this is just blissful.
Yeah.
But I wasn't prepared. I didn't have a book. I was just like what do I do with my time?
It doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter.
I just in that scenario, right, So you're on the beach, are actually relaxed, Your kids are playing, they're not fighting, they're not needing you for this moment. I mean a bit of sunburn. Just so that happened.
Look, the hats, I have to say the hats did remain on, because that is my one thing that I always am quite picky about the hats being on their head because there's nothing worse than fucking dealing with sunstroke or anything like that later on when they're just overwhelmed because they've had too much heat through their head.
How do you keep the hats on while they're in the.
Water, I don't know. They're not dry. They go under the water with it on, come back up. They wear bucket hats. The bucket hats.
Are still like a string underneath old.
No, they just take it off. They're jumping around. They put it back on. And do you know what else I took to the beach A handball. I don't actually know if I packed out of hand.
It didn't take sunscreen.
A handball was in the bag. Times have changed so much and somehow on just that particular day, the beach felt like it was the beach again.
You finally got there. Yeah, you finally got.
I can't say that we were when we were leaving the chaos that I had to go through to get them a to leave b because one couldn't walk to the car, the other one wouldn't put shoes on because the sand in between her toes and being wet and like, don't get me wrong, it wasn't like the most blissful day that you could think of, but it was definitely a shift in the right direction from baby days.
Yeah, that post beach sand everywhere is also a lot like your car would have looked like shit. It still does. Yeah, getting sand out of it for weeks, months on end.
It doesn't matter how many times its Just dust your feet off, Like, just at least dust your feet off, Sit on the edge of the seat of the car. Just run your towel down your legs so it falls outside of the car, and then put your legs in just that.
Yeah, Well, just to wrap up any mums or dad's or anyone out there that wants a secret and a lot of people would know this, but wants the secret to getting sand off of kids at the beach, tucking powder.
We did talk about this, Yeah, this is one of your fun packs.
It's so good that come off the sand. They've got sand everywhere, all over the legs, TALCN powder rub it over, the sand just falls off. Trust me, I can't believe you haven't
Done telling you this for you, I barely pack fucking sunscreen, let alone talking powder.