Satisfying That Winterlust

How are your holidays going?  For me I have noticed a remarkable difference in my children in the sense that they just aren’t themselves.  It’s amazing how much the holidays throw them.  Most of it can probably be attributed to their lack of sleep (we have unfortunately slipped back into our old ways but will start fixing that from this evening) but the rest is just the lack of routine.

The amount of bickering we’ve had to deal with.  Wow.

This post is sponsored by the the V&A Waterfront

The good news is that for us, there is a way to get around it.  And that’s with distraction.  Yip.  I call distraction my ultimate parenting skill.  It’s amazing how distraction can, well, distract from even the worst situations.  Freaking out because they really want something?  “Oh look there, there’s a plane, do you remember that time that you fetched us at the airport?  That sign you made was so beautiful!  What part did you draw again?”

Boom – no more tantrum.  It takes a bit of energy and feels like you’re parenting a lot harder than just shouting, but I think it works out better in the long run.  I’ve tried both, the screaming option more often than not and we all just feel better after the distraction one.  Anyway.

The distraction that we like to use on the weekend is to go out together as family.  Although it’s a bit of distraction for them to stop fighting, it’s also great being able to spend some time together just having fun.  And fun we have.  Except in Winter it always seems like there’s less options to keep the kids entertained.

A couple of weekends ago we headed out to our favourite spot – the V&A Waterfront.  I say it’s our favourite because without fail, if Seth and I have a date night we always end up there.  ALWAYS.  I think it’s because there’s just so much variety in terms of what to do – great food, movies, concerts, boat rides, aquarium visits, cave golf and ALL the shopping.  It’s perfect.

Funnily enough our kids feel the same way – you can ask them where they want to go on any given weekend and this will be their first choice.  I think it’s the awesome kids play area that is part of the winning combination here.  Which means that when the V&A Waterfront got in touch with us to try out their “Winterlust” activities we were absolutely keen.  Who doesn’t want to spend the morning Art Jamming, eating lunch at the Vista Marina and then ice skating?  Sounds like the perfect day to me, so that’s exactly what we did.

Art Jamming was our first stop and we had a chance to get a little creative.  It’s been a long time since I’ve had the chance to just paint something.  Besides that art piece in our lounge I mean.  It was such fun.  I adore all the different colours that you can use and if you’re not feeling confident enough to wing it, then there are loads of great stencils that you can use too.

The only thing that I need to stress to you is that your kids and you, should be wearing older clothes that you don’t mind potentially messing up.  You do get an apron, but that doesn’t really stop it – paint has a way of landing up in weird places.  Just ask Kyla who ended up with it all over her shoulder.

By the time that we were done we were starving so we headed over to Vista Marina which is the restaurant inside the Aquarium area.  Oh man, the food was great with a fantastic view and wonderful service.  It checked all the boxes and filled our bellies.  The kids especially enjoyed the hot chocolate!  Admittedly I had such order envy, it looked so good I had to do everything in my power not to succumb to ordering one myself.

With happy tummies we headed out to try and find the ice skating rink.  It’s set up near the swing bridge at the Clock Tower.  It’s R30 for 20 minutes and they supply you with the skates and a hand trying to perfect the art of not falling on your face.  It was such a blast trying to remember how to skate and the kids nailed it pretty quickly although they enjoyed being able to push the little polar bears around too.

I took a hilarious fall.  Man, I wish I could have seen it in 3rd person.  It would have been so funny.  You know when you just try and try to save yourself but you end up making it so much worse?  That was me.  Even despite all of that we had fun!  And we finished up just before the rain kicked in which is perfect timing as it is outside.

The best day out.

Then as you may have seen, we’re trying to up our video game a bit and so I made a little short video of our time there.  It actually worked out pretty well all things considered!  Besides always needing to be better at the actual video taking, the only other thing I need to figure out is where to get great free music because wow, the options are just terrible.

Any ideas welcome.  In the meantime, I hope you dig it.