Let’s lose the kids in the water

Being the only uncle to a bunch of boys who can fill out a small platoon comes with not just enough responsibilities but a minimum knowledge requirement. Like knowing ‘fast track.’

“Tom mama, let’s get fast track,” said one of my nephews at the entry to the water park.

“But didn’t I get you all watches just last year?”

I was serious as I had actually gifted them outdoor watches from Casio the previous Christmas. In response the kids took turns looking exasperated and laughed. They glanced over their shoulders embarrassed making sure the nincompoop stayed within earshot.

Park views

It later transpired what ‘fast track’ really was – you paid serious extra dosh to cut ahead of snaking long queues – a norm in all major theme parks across the world, I am told. The chap who invented this should be in line for some kind of prize, say a bougie award. To make up for my socialist nudges, I bought the kids fast track passes and decided to wait it out myself with the majority of the park population. What if I had to come back without doing the Equinox 360 and Recoil – rides I always had my eyes on!

With most of my sisters poised for the future with two boys each, the resultant chaos isn’t enough to convince my mother that I don’t personally have to contribute to the noise levels with my own set of progeny. She still makes it sound like having kids will save the world – at least mine which more women have left than Richard Burton’s bed. So, I make it a point to take the kids out occasionally – to the beach, eateries, movies, libraries and parks. I always return, reaffirmed in my belief that I can always borrow a boy or two from my wonderful sisters should I get tired of the tranquility. And they’d only be happy to indulge me.

“So, how was it, Tom mama?” The sisters chide me after each outing. Well, as long as I remain a mama I am fine. I don’t say that.

Ride up, slide down

From my past experience, however limited, I have learnt some important lessons when it comes to hanging out with kids: You put a bunch of kids together and adults disappear from their eyes till it’s time for a burger or Fanta. Also their hearing prowess goes on airplane mode – and by extension their ability to acknowledge admonitions. In Varkala a few years ago, I frothed at the mouth screaming at some of the boys for venturing into the deep sea – they were practically washed ashore by a big wave. Over the din of my own voice, the waves and the drone camera I was flying, I heard them calmly plotting another foray. ‘This time we will jump over the wave,’ was the plan. Then, on the bright side, they were figuring surfing lessons on their own.

As soon as the fast track passes were tied around their wrists like tacky pub entries, they vamoosed faster than a mongoose across the road. I had offered to collect the relevant literature and chart out the rides – their mothers were only reaching and I had to appear capable. But the kids were already reeling off the relative merits and demerits of each ride like predictive text – planning and challenging each other.

“I will skip the Flash Tower,” said one. “It lands the brain in my stomach.”

“Then you shouldn’t really worry.”

“How do you guys even know the names?” I asked.

Apparently all of them had come here over a year ago. Well, ask me where I went yesterday and I will have to check my status updates.

Splash landings

When my sisters turned up later they had no problem spotting me – they just had to look for the two-legged cloakroom walking around in frantic circles. It had been over an hour and I was clueless as to where the kids were. The sisters said we should call their names over the PA system. But it was unlikely they would hear it over all the whoosh of the water slides and the roar of space wheels. And even if they did it was quite possible that they would look at each other and dismiss it with a conspiratorial shrug – I see them do it all the time. I promptly reminded them of our cool youngest sister who had, once years ago dropped her boys – aged all of four and six then – at the park entrance with the strict instruction that they were to be at the same spot in the evening when she returned to pick them up. If they weren’t there, they had to spend the night in the park. It worked and they were there, on the dot, waiting, with souvenir photographs to boot. The elves then enquired if they could still spend the night inside the park.

“They binge-watch ‘Night at the Museum,” she explained later. If she was any ruffled by the unsettling bravura she managed not to show it. Nevertheless, this incident remains a benchmark in our family circle for what kids are capable of. Definitely a handy episode for me to cite now and then.

We did spot them a few hours later in a pool with a thousand others, holiday-special Fohawk hair erinaceous in the water, one clutching his tummy as if struck by a case of collywobbles but still refusing to call it a day. But by then, we weren’t even looking for them but lollygagging in our own childhood and the years spent away from each other after leaving home.

Packing up, moving on

The biggest bummer about growing up is not the ageing part or rearing children or racking up enough loans to EMI the rest of your life away but having to share space. When we were kids, we had our own well-defined spaces: car seats were divided by the ridges on the upholstery, library shelves by termite marks and dining benches with Goofy bumbershoots. There was even enough personal space that one of my sisters and I had this prayer cum voodoo ritual which we hoped would bring a favourite doll to life.

“They are in the room breathing life to Becky.” The others would leave us alone.

Then you grew up and got in with somebody and there is a gross invasion. There are no more defined territories but a clingy togetherness – whether it is the bed or the bathroom. We laughed at our own flippant fights as kids and laughed harder at the compromises we made as adults. We reminisced about the Filipina, French and African children we grew up with in Nigeria where we spent a part of our childhood. How we played with these kids in a subterranean water tank my Dad built in a water-scarce place – floating dead toads and writhing water snakes had to be fished out first before we waded in.

As dusk fell, the kids made a beeline to the changing rooms with the rest of the horde. The rides were well and truly over and their animated conversations ranged from holiday specials Thor and Thanos to how Robert Pattinson would fare as Batman. This vastly disconcerted the lone girl in the group – whose intellect and memory were scary, who devoured both Kindle and hardcovers with equal aplomb.

#TomMama

“Tom mama, do you think he will make a good Batman?” She asked.

“Well, give me Val Kilmer any day.” Honestly, I didn’t remember any other caped crusader who came in between. The new Batmobiles though I kept a tab on which were a distinct improvement.

My sisters laughed. They were more up to date on brooding vampires and confusions caused by all the time travel in Endgame.

“I watched ‘Captain America’ the other day,” one sister said. “I have downloaded ‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ for later.”

I think these were mandatory watching material for parents with teenage kids these days.

“But too many special effects comes in the way of my viewing experience,” I said.

“That’s why you don’t have children.”