Lets have a little holiday de-brief.

Here in South Africa our kids have a 3 week holiday mid-year (it’s winter here then June/July) and it’s usually a bit of chaos mixed in with relaxed schedules and working from home.

In other words, send coffee, snacks and wine!

In our little surfing town, Jeffrey’s Bay, we have the WSL Corona Open in July every year, but for the last two years, the event was off because of the old pan-dam. This year it was ON!

Our business is heavily involved with the set up and maintenance of computer networks, TV live screens, surveillance cameras and fibre internet during the event. It runs for a 10 day window. So during this time I become an “event widow” and it’s full on solo parenting whilst hubster gets his work on 24/7 for 3 weeks.

Yes, the same three weeks as the holidays.

But here’s the thing.

The event attracts thousands of people, and especially this year with 3 South Africans in the running as well as it being the first event of it’s kind in South Africa since Rona, it was packed, 15000 people packed. It’s not something to miss, you have to at least go down there and experience the vibe once, so I ventured down with my boys to experience the vibe, and I deliberately chose the “off day” when the competition wasn’t running, but all the other event activities (shopping/food/music) where on. There were a fair amount of people on the beach and the grandstand up on the grass was packed to capacity as people waited excitedly for the surfing to start.

This was supposed to be a quick trip down, so I didn’t pack anything, water bottles where left in the car and we were just supposed to shoot down, say hi to dad, and shoot back home.

Well, that didn’t happen.

We spotted school friends and the boys wanted to join in their beach games and we ended up staying on the beach for 3 hours! It’s always like that, when you’re unprepared, it becomes an all day thing and everyone is fine, relaxed, no stress, no meltdowns. But, on the day I plan a picnic with juice and rolls and snacks, including sound blockers and changes of clothing ended up being the worst trip down to the contest. It was the semi-finals day and the local boy was surfing, so everyone in the area, and I mean EVERYONE, decided to be on the beach and in the grandstand and filling every walkway and open space to watch him surf. This also happened to be the time that we arrived down there. Parking what felt like a million miles away and walking around 3 blocks to get to the event site. By then my boys were over the walking, it was hot, the roads where filled with parked cars and general big event chaos. We eventually got to the event and made our way through the food park and down the crammed walk way onto the beach.

I could feel the panic starting to rise.

I found an open space on the sand behind all the people and stood there, hoping my husband was on his way to us to help us navigate through the crowd. As he arrives to our secluded spot, the surfing hots up and the crowd starts to cheer and clap, and that’s when it all went south. C slams his hands on his ears and starts to scream. The noise was so sudden and loud that it overtook him completely. I had forgotten to put his headphones on and hadn’t anticipated this much noise on the beach. Grabbing the headphones out the bag, and dad picking him up, we snaked our way through the crowd like elephants holding each others tails up to the event site. It was so crowded that C had to get down from hubby so he could pick up S who is so tiny nobody could see him and he was getting bumped around. So with S with dad, C holding onto the back of dad and walking right behind him, I brought up the rear with my rucksack of snacks.

We eventually found our way out of the crowd and to a quiet table out the back of the event site to sit and gather ourselves. Kids snacked, we had coffee and everyone seemed okay, even C had recovered now that the noise was behind us.

I tried so hard to be prepared for every eventuality and it still took me by surprise. I could not anticipate that the beach would erupt into cheers as we got down there, but it was a good experience to see how C coped with everything. He knew to put his headphones and calmed down within minutes. We understood that we needed to make a quick exit to a quiet place and stay there. When we left the venue and made the long trek back to the car, the boys started getting tired, and C started getting grumpy, but a little quiet time at home got him back to his usual self quite quickly.

It’s not always easy taking a chance on such a big day, but we can’t stay in a box forever. At some point we need to stretch the boundary a little and have a brave conversation and have the coping tools handy to help them regulate in the moment. I think this will happen with time, and as C gets older he will start to see the warning signs himself and be able to self regulate.

So now holiday time is over and it’s back to school, which is another transition to navigate with a sensory kid.

x Kim