Cotton Wool

A few days ago my wonderful mum looked after my kids while I went to work.  They both love going to Grandma and Papas.  My parents do what grandparents are supposed to do....spoil them with love.  The boys dont know how lucky they are.


 Grandma took them down to the creek which is below their place to see what they could find and much to the delight of the curly haired boy they saw a platypus !! So of course he fell in trying to get a good look and came out dripping with water and happiness.  Mum said to me that she was sorry he fell in and that she was watching him and that got me thinking.
I grew up playing in that creek.  Tiddly fishing, trying to surf down it when in a raging flood, exploring it with my sister and cousins decked out in gumboots.  Using our imagination to fill our days in the best way we knew how.
Getting up really early on cold frosty mornings and saddling up the horses while their nostrils blew hot steam that would would warm our faces , and then take off for the day riding wherever the mood took us.  We would return home hours later filthy, exhaused and totally drunk on the happiness of being a kid growing up in a safe place.


I now think of what kids do today and the restrictions that we as parents put on them 'just incase' something happens.
My parents never watched us at the creek.  Never even knew half the time that we had dissapeared so early to go riding and rarely knew what we were up to, BUT they trusted us and trusted the society that we lived in.

They still live in my childhood home, a place where the magic of my youth still haunts but now things have changed.  Society has caught up.  They or I would think twice about letting the boys wander off down the street alone to get a midnight feast of lollies as we did.  Think twice about letting them dissapear for hours on end to do what ever they feel like. We would worry about who they were talking to and who said what to whom.  Where has the care free childhood gone?

With my kids I truely try not to wrap them in cotton wool..I really do !!  I want them to go exploring, get covered in mud, fall off bikes and even break a few bones if it means they are being kids.
I want them to not be afraid of the world as it has become but to learn to trust their own instincts..even if some lessons will be learnt the hard way.


So I like to think I cover my kids with life..warts and all.  Of course they still love to play those computer games and totally manage to whip my butt every time , but its a matter of finding balance.
Its a hard job being a parent, often thankless, but I will always protect my kids and I solomly promise to let them be themselves and to keep the COTTON WOOL for dabbing their broken bodies as they explore life.
What do you think?
                                        Cheers   Dilly xx