themumzone

​These TV shows and adverts make it look as if summer is one day of sunshine after another. They have fed us this romantic notion of children running around green fields all day, building sand castles on sunny beaches, playing in parks and eating ice cream with adults lounging around the garden sipping lemonade.

It’s not at all like that in this my Lagos.

It is rain. Rain today, sun tomorrow. Somedays rain and sun simultaneously. Flooded streets, pot holes and broken car suspensions. Children spend all day indoors because we are too paranoid to let them out alone into the compound talkless of the busy streets. Don’t ask me why I won’t go out to play with them, I don’t like heat please. I will need to take a standing fan but that one involves too much energy. I could manage an indoor park but that kind of defeats the essence of taking them out for fresh air doesn’t it?

When I was younger, I remember looking forward to summer in terms of something that would happen when I got older. At the time, it was just a long stretch of holiday to me. Right now my son may be having the same impression about it. I saw him watching a scene on TV with some kind of longing, and the day I managed to take them downstairs to paddle about in their little rubber pool, this moment reminded me of that.

 The message on the web ad said it was like having a private blue lake in your backyard. When we pumped it up and filled it with water it was more like a blue pond! But they loved it regardless.