A Conundrum Of Mammoth Proportions!

19. February 2009, 10:36 pmkidslightening

When you plan to go away for 14 weeks, chances are that you’re going to miss a few things while you’re away.

Fair enough. That’s to be expected.

What if the thing you’re going to miss REALLY matters to you?

Like it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity.

*sigh*

“Houston we have a problem”

Okay, no space shuttle is going to fall out of the sky and no-one’s life is being threatened or anything like that. So I’m blowing this just slightly out of proportion.

Although if you’re 11 years old and as big a Crows fan as my son is….

Maybe not.

Lleyton’s football team is going to play at a Crows match at half time.

August 1st.

While we’re away.

*sob*

My heart is breaking and we haven’t even told him yet!

As I can see it, our options are:

A. Lleyton Misses Out. Cry

There’s nothing we can do to change it so he’ll have to miss out. So will many other boys who NEVER get this opportunity in the first place. Like those who played last year and are now too old for that level of football. Disappointing for his team too as he’s one of the older players (and they don’t have many of those).

B. Change our trip. Surprised

Can we leave a month later? If we do, he’ll miss out on the opportunity to try out for an interschool sports competition - where he wants to try out for tennis (his strongest sport). Leaving early enough to be back by then won’t work for the farm.

C. Fly back from wherever we are.

By the 1st we’ll be in the Northern part of Queensland. About the furthest away we could possibly be. In some ways, it couldn’t have fallen on any date that’s worse for us. Earlier or later in our trip and we’d have been close enough to Brisbane where more “cheap” flights are available. At this stage we’re looking at close to $1000 to fly Lleyton and Farmboy back and that cuts into our trip budget quite a LOT! (Like 1/5 of our activities budget). Undecided

I know, the trip we’re doing is an opportunity of a lifetime and one most kids don’t get to experience.

But as a parent, this is heart-wrenching.

Update:

We’ve just told Lleyton and he’s devastated. I hate watching my child in tears. My heart feels like it just fell into a bazillion pieces.

I know it’s just a football game…..

I can’t help but feel like this is going to put a real dampner on our trip. Cry

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10 comments:

  1. Lynette, 20. February 2009, 8:50

    oh how sad and what a life skill to learn.. not all things work out they way we want….. but you will be on the holiday of a lifetime remember?

     
  2. Marita, 20. February 2009, 12:15

    Sad for Lleyton, such a harsh life lesson to learn so young. Hopefully once he is on the trip he will be having so much fun that he wont mind missing out so much. But the initial shock and upset is always bad.

     
  3. Mistress B, 20. February 2009, 12:35

    Damn.

    I don’t envy you.

     
  4. Kelli, 20. February 2009, 17:42

    We had a similar problem last year. DS6 won a trip to the grand final & to play at half time - we were supposed to leave on our holiday the Friday before. Lucky for me & him it was at the start of our holiday so we could just leave 4 days later, but I understand how horrible you feel - I felt revolting until I was able to juggle things enough.

    Good luck with whatever decision you make. It is so hard to feel like our kids are disappointed.

     
  5. Wendy, 20. February 2009, 19:22

    We had much the same issue when MissN was in Yr 6 and we had a 10 week trip to Europe planned. She was in the Tournamnet of Minds team in Yr 5 and wanted to do it again in Yr 6 but the comp was 2 days after we wanted to fly out. Plus she missed the auditions for the Yr 6 play and missed the opportunity of having a leading role, which she was pretty sure of having if she had been there.

    We kept reinforcing that when she was an old lady, she would remember the trip and NOT the TOM comp or the yr 6 play.

     
  6. Ian, 21. February 2009, 2:01

    I’m with Marita on this one. Hopefully he’s enjoying the trip so much the football will be forgotten.

    On a lighter note, I guess its teaching him that passionately following a sporting team always leads to disappointment!

     
  7. Thando - Website Development, 21. February 2009, 20:28

    Sometimes we really wish that we can have it all, and eat the cake too! However life’s little lessons all happen for a reason, and fortunately children have notoriously short attention spans….good luck with this situation mate, I’m sure all will end well!

     
  8. PlanningQueen, 22. February 2009, 9:18

    I can only add that kids do move on pretty quickly once they have accepted something. Hopefully Lleyton will.

     
  9. Emma, 22. February 2009, 23:05

    Hi Jodi,

    Is there any chance that Farmboy and Lleyton could catch a bus to Brisbane and fly from there?

    Good luck and best wishes,

    Emma.

     
  10. Sweaty Feet, 24. February 2009, 4:14

    Well I’m sure it’s heartbreaking now… But he hopefully he will forget about it soon and gain even more from your trip :)

     

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