You might have gathered by now that my 3 and a half-year-old is a little shit. A lovely, funny, adorable little shit. Terrible twos can kiss my ass because I've been suffering through them since he could crawl. He is now in a phase of telling me I'm a 'loser', that he 'hates me', I'm a 'smelly nappy baby' and he won't kiss me goodnight because I've got a 'beard on' (I haven't, I swear!).
He has started playing my husband's SNES video games console and plays street fighter a lot. He is actually really, really good. I struggle to beat him so when he wins he wins for real, I'm too competitive to let a child beat me. However, when he loses...DEMON. Last time he threw the controller at my head, on a good day he just tells me I'm not his best friend anymore.
Anyway, so he tests me, to put it nicely. We took him to the Lake District for a family holiday to a caravan park. He spent most of the time screaming at us from inside his room or packing and repacking his 'packpack' to go home without us. The weather was dreadful so we couldn't take him to the playground to run it off as we usually would. On the way home I decided to make a nice gesture and take him to Blackpool Pleasure Beach to the Nickelodeon Land they have there.
As we arrived, the first ride that was height appropriate was Alice in Wonderland, I quickly saw on the ride that a tunnel was coming up and it did go quite dark for a second which my son was not too keen on, he didn't cry but he was scared. I'm not ashamed to say that I felt no sympathy for this. He had given me a stressful weekend away when I was looking forward to a nice family holiday. We finished the ride and he got off and told his dad how scary it was. Then, I saw it, my husband asked me what I was grinning at and I pointed to a building afar. The Ghost Train.
We walked over and I asked my son if he wanted to go on a train ride, looking back I'm sure I almost tried to make it sound like a nice Thomas the Tank Engine experience. My bad.
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We could both hear the screams as we waited in line for the ride and my son said I don't like this one. I ignored him. We sat in the cart and the ride inclined up to the door that led to the inside horrors. We were greeted by a skeleton which my son found amusing but then it all went dark. This ride is quite old, as if you've been to Blackpool, you'll know it's very dated inside. There was hissing of smoke machines and lights, bats and witches and the screams of other children echoed throughout our ride. There is a part halfway where you exit the inside area and you are exposed to the outside crowd in order to drop down into a dip and back up to the other side for more inside 'fun'. My son was fine inside, a few jumpy moments which amused me greatly and a couple of screams, nothing too traumatising just enough to sate my urge to strangle him myself. However, as soon as the ride's doors opened and we could see the crowd outside, I pointed his daddy out, he was in bits, he broke down, screaming and crying. Now, I thought I felt bad for him at this point, and I thought I remembered trying to hug him.
Nevertheless, we returned home and my phone synced to the TV which randomly shows pictures as the screensaver when it synchronises. As I unpacked in the kitchen I heard my son saying 'I don't like that one that one is scary'. My husband told me I better had come look at the TV. There, for all to see and judge, was a photo of us on the outside portion of the ride, my son with tears streaming down his face, screaming, and me, sat at the side of him, laughing my head off.
