It’s raining today. Yesterdays hopes of being able to fly my remote control helicopter whilst my six year old daughter tries out her new roller skates (both presents from Christmas) are completely out the window. Instead it’s a day of “rainy day” activities that lay before us.

Only the morning has passed and so far we’ve tidied, hoovered, drawn pictures for every member of the family we can think of and watched the film Arrietty (a Manga adaptation of Mary Norton’s, The Borrowers).
Side note: who’d have thought by the age of 6 my daughter would be playing the harmonica, able to skateboard AND enjoy manga…proud dad moment!

Anyway, it’s barely one o’clock and we’re fast running out of things to do. Then an email comes up on my phone, “20% off at Flaming Grill”, it’s for the chain that owns the Queen B’ down the road. Normally I’d ignore this promo without a second thought but this time I’m drawn in by the fact there is a Wacky Warehouse as part of the venue. Then, as if she knew what plan I was formulating, my daughter asks, “Is it lunch time yet?”
“Yep! Grab your boots, we’re going out for lunch, I’ve got a surprise…”
Well I didn’t have to tell her twice. Lunch and a run about in a padded child heaven complete with slide and ball pool is now our afternoon plan.

As great as that sounds…it isn’t! Although the place said they catered for all dietry needs, vegan was clearly a stretch. Fair enough, it’s called Flaming Grill, what did I expect! But it was clear the place was more about quantity than quality, unless you were health conscious, in which case you can forget about quantity too. The salsa on my tiny bean buritto appeared to be ketchup with chunks, just as good as it sounds. My daughter chose the kids version of the Doughnut Burger (a burger served in a sugary ring doughnut…speechless), but she did want carrot, cucumber and pepper sticks instead of chips, which I took as a small victory, and top it off we were informed we’ll have to wait 40 minutes for this rubbish! And as for the Wacky Warehouse? Well…She loved it, of course she did. But for me, I was met with signs stating “Parents Are Not Allowed To Play With Their Children”.

Really?!

I looked around and realised that every parent in their was either ignoring their child or shouting at them. Not one parent had a smile on their face. They were either bored or annoyed. Would that be the same if the parents were allowed to play too? Of course not! And how do I know this? Because earlier, in the 40 minutes we were waiting at our table for our pretend food, we played together.
We played: Rock-Paper-Scissors, Thumb Wars, Noughts & Crosses and Draughts (a version I have on my phone). We both spent 40 minutes smiling, laughing and feeling happy. When our rubbish food came we were both still smiling from the fun we had had. When my daughter came out of Wacky Warehouse, where for fun she had to rely on children who were either misbehaving because they were being ignored or misbehaving because they were being shouted at, she had well and truly had enough.

So, it’s 3rd January 2015 and my New Year’s resolution is to do less of what the signs say. Perhaps there would be a few more smiles if we all stopped doing what the signs say. After all you don’t get a daughter who can play the harmonica, skateboard and enjoy manga when you ignore them all the time…or shout at them for that matter.

So, I say, “Play!
Don’t do what the signs say.”