To wonder why we aren't one of "those" families

[Mypetsnails]

Sort of lighthearted. This is going to sound SO daft. But do you ever notice the families who seem, well, better at family-ing than everyone else?

We went to a thing at a National Trust place at the weekend. Took a picnic and sat on the big green. Right beside us there was this family that had a three sided shelter type thing which they'd popped their baby and picnic in to protect them from the sun. They'd brought tennis racquets and these gorgeous kids and their equally beautiful parents were taking it in turns to whack a ball around/sit in the shelter thing. They had a picnic cool bag the size of my kitchen, no idea what they brought but it was probably nicer than my tragic cheese sandwiches

Then there's the beach. We're trying to stop our towels blowing away, and the alpha family have a wall of windbreaks, a body board, and a barbecue.

DD is actually friends with a child from such a family, and they also have a really organised hallway with special named slots and storage systems for all the children's outdoor things. Plus the mum has a boot storage thing with a first aid kit, plasters, and spare clothes in it.

There's obviously nothing stopping me buying little shelters, bodyboards, and shoe storage for my hallway, but it's more that it wouldn't occur to me? And I don't know why? I used to play at a tennis club twice a week, why on earth don't WE bring racquets with us?

Does anyone know what I mean? I was a very solitary only child, and my parents didn't do a lot of child friendly things with me, so maybe it's a bit of a hangover from that - I remember feeling that my family and home was very different from other people's but when I tried to express why to my mum, I said "they have big tins for their biscuits and we just put ours into the cupboard"

Loving Talith's hasty ziggurat

We also have a very beautiful woven picnic hamper. That never gets used. It's not as practical as a rucksack and we only take it if we know we'll be parking close by as it's so heavy when it's full and despite being vair vair expensive, physics whispers in my ear not to carry it with its handle for a long period of time.

I do have a foldable picnic blanket though and it is one of my favourite things ever.

Also, I've had some looks at local skate parks because I'm there in my camping chair. I can tell you now that that organisation comes from taking my scooter mad 8 year old to these outdoor concrete ones in the middle of winter. You only have to freeze your ass off on a concrete slab once to make changes.
The camping chair lives in my boot now along with a blanket.

My children are grown up now, but I remember those families very well, my DH is good at that stuff but I’ve always let him down. (I have my own strengths!)
I very occasionally was in the right place at the right time with the right things, but it was always a brief triumph.

I remember being on Dartmoor when my fourth baby needed a nappy change. I had no wipes so I used Sun cream and tissues, it was so thick it just spread and spread. She had a lovely soft bottom afterwards though. I do remember being disappointed with myself that four children later and I still wasn't organised and sadly realising I never would be. Did the same thing again this time at my Mum 's house and had to use eye make up remover wipes on her bum. No harm done and it all works out in the end. I wonder if those super organised people with windbreaks etc actually enjoy themselves on their micro managed days out.

We’re not in that league, maybe halfway there.
I’ve just learnt through experience and bought things as I’ve been inspired by others and I’m all for an organised cheap fun day out with the kids.
So we’ll have a cool bag for a picnic and a nice large picnic rug. We have a bag packed with various toys for the beach and one for the park which live under the stairs so they’re ready to go.
I have a ‘Day out’ ruck sack which contains wipes, hand gel, antiseptic wipes and box of plasters, activity books, pens. I just add the packed lunch and water bottles.
I don’t want chairs but a beach shelter is on my list.

I hate all that paraphanalia you see women, always women, dragging about with them. Jesus christ why? Fair enough when your baby is a baby but once kids are toilet trained there's just no need to bring half the contents of the house with you everywhere you go. Maybe its because I grew up in and live in a seaside town but tbh it makes me laugh the stuff people take to the beach. You'd think they had to survive three weeks in the australian bush! It doesn't make me feel envious of them at all, I just think....noob.

We used to go on holiday with friends who had lots of money but were very tight. They prided themselves on being minimalist. In practice this meant them borrowing our stuff all the time, getting pissed off because our kids weren’t that keen on sharing their body boards and buckets and spades and spending half the holiday handwashing the two changes of clothing they’d brought.

When my kids were young, we used to go to a play group and this family often went with their twins and they never had any stuff with them, so they were always asking around for wipes or borrowing spare clothes or looking for nappies. It wasn’t a money thing, they were just disorganized, but it just seemed so stressful all the time. Surely they would have made life so much easier on themselves just to have a baby bag with spare clothes, wipes, nappies, etc.

I just didn’t get it. It doesn’t take that long to organize s bag and give it a quick check before heading out.

Nobody has time to chop tropical bloody fruit on holiday do they? (unless they are doing it on the beach, direct from the tree, with a cutlass)

Great thread.

I fail at being organised, I have more than enough time but it just bypasses me.
One of our more memorable beach trips was in Spring, it was a bit nippy so it was a coats and wellies kind of trip.
I'd prepared a flask of homemade soup and one of hot chocolate, I'd even brought squirty cream and marshmallows.
The tide was out so we walked for ages carrying DS in the buggy over sand dunes. We stopped near the sea, DD unpacked the kite and a massive gust of wind blew it away right out to sea.
I unclipped DS from his buggy he took three steps and fell on his face in the sea, he was drenched from head to foot and only had spare socks.
DH opened the food bag and both the soup and hot chocolate had leaked.
We trudged back over the dunes back to the car and went to a cafe. DS had on his vest and nappy, DD's gilet and a pair of socks pulled up to his knees!

Sometimes we are that family but usually we are not. Like someone said upthread, if we don't have what we need I feel a failure and if we have stuff with us I feel stupid and spoilt for not being minimalist and enjoying simple fun without a tonne of stuff.

We are not that outdoorsy and I'd rather die than play rounders. But give us an urban transit system and we will play for hours.

I do carry a first aid kit after a humiliating experience on a beach in Nice where we managed precisely 15 seconds in the sea. Ds2 was knocked over by a wave, and we all came out of the water bleeding from the force of pebbles being thrown at our shins by the tide. A kind German family handed us some plasters and we squelched back to our apartment.

You do realise the family with perfect organisation, perfect manners and amazing energy don't actually exist, right? They're androids.

We went to a national trust place today to meet up with a friend and her family. Thought I had done so well with suncream and changes of clothes. Went to make sandwiches and the bread was mouldy the baby had a nappy explosion and I didn’t have time for anything else so went to asda on the way and got pre packed sandwiches, couple of bags of crisps.
We arrived and my friend was wearing a beautiful summer dress her baby looked like she could have been in a catalogue and to cap it off they pulled out a gorgeous wicker picnic basket crammed with fresh homemade salads and couscous and little pots of avocado and delightfully naice finger foods for their baby. My baby slobbered con a cheese sandwich and then made a good attempt to eat some mud.
It started raining and they pulled out pack a macs and rain covers. We got soaking went into the castle got the kids changed into their spare clothes and dried off. Came outside dd1 immediately ran over to a giant puddle and (because she has her mammys coordination skills) immediately fell over covered head to toe in thick gloopy mud. The baby vomited all over her and me.
We waved them off listening to baby Mozart or some other such shite. I set off with a baby dressed in nothing but a nappy, dd1 wearing a spare jumper of her dads I found in the boot, and me in a breastfeeding vest and didn’t realize until I was 10 minutes away from home that a boob was hanging out.
I need gin

We've just come back from a week in Cornwall. We took a beach tent and mats rolled up inside the small windbreaks and tied with straps which Ds2 carried. A bag for life with five towels, a mallet, a book, a pack of cards, travel ludo, water bottles and spare sarongs/tshirts/beach shoes and rash vests which Ds1 carried. 3 bodyboards, a blanket and a bucket which dd and I carried.
One of the colder days I took a camp stove, travel Mugs, tea bags and hot chocolate with the travel kettle for when the dc came out of the sea.
Ds1 and Ds2 went to the chippy or pasty shop for lunch and brought it to us on the beach.
I love having adult/almost adult dc.

@rose789

A thread that's jogged my memory of picnics and places down the years. Thanks op.
'Sufficient' describes my overall impression of our days out.
As kids we'd picnic on a large, thick canvas sheet (with brass rings on all edges).
Dad had been in the river police. Years down the line we learnt it was what
bodies were wrapped in having been fished out the Thames.

@rose789 😂😂😂😂😂😂

We have a rather nice picnic bag that we were given as a present years ago, plates,cutlery, table cloth, napkins, cheeseboard, bottle opener etc etc. when we took our grandchildren out and got this lot out one of the children commented that the setting was far nicer than the food!

As a kid I remember shivering sat on the beach.
My mum would insist we stay as it was our holiday and she wasn’t going to let the weather spoil it.
No amount of cheap windbreakers would compensate.
I’ve never taken my kids on holiday in anything other than good weather. I’d rather miss a couple of years and go abroad in the guaranteed sunshine.
Use a decent hotel where they cater for your needs.

My DH is like this (he is a scout leader). Thank goodness though as my family were super disorganised and I inherited it from them. It’s like OP said, you just don’t think of the things that come naturally to other people.

Before I’ve put my DD in her car seat my DH has a bag with her spare clothes, picnic for us, coats all packed and he is sitting in the car waiting to go. It’s really embarrassing on my part

Every time we go to our timeshare there is always a family who bring out orange/melon segments to eat by the pool.

Ok I don't use a wicker basket because a backpack is easier to carry but we are unfortunately that family, but only on quiet beaches.

It's mostly fluke, we have the gear due to camping so may as well use it, if we head to the beach we will be there all day so want to be comfortable and have shade. I'm too lazy to make a picnic so more than likely will just pick up bits like cheese, ham and a baguette with fruit for snacking on.

We can do it spur of the moment as we can grab everything in minutes and head off (unfortunately yes the child will probably be dressed in Boden my mother insists on buying it) my response to mud is that's what washing machines are for, the muddier the better.

I was like you with my first but we soon learnt how to be better equipped for days out.
Simple things like taking a bucket and spade to the beach. We would be the family without one. Now that parks have sandy areas, we not only have our bucket and spades ready but a lunch, water, drinks etc lol. However we don't go too fancy with the food. Simple sandwiches are enough but on certain occasions we may have a feast of samosas and pastries.
We aren't the type to have windbreaks etc because we don't go out when it's too windy and don't have the space to store all these extra items but we never used to think of taking toys, balls etc to play and now we will try to remember. It's down to experience or even having extra hands which we don't have. If you are now noticing about yourself, it's you waking up and being able to prepare better next time like we did! It's all good.

I’m organised. To the poster who was amazed bags and shoes were packed and in the hall ready to go on the morning of your friends holiday, why wouldn’t you do that. DH is from a very disorganised family my Mother’s parents were both in the military so they had a very organised household, it’s one of the influences she had on me that I’m glad of.

When dc were little I always had a bag of spare clothes in the car plus wipes etc.

The last bike ride I went on with DH we had a bento box, decent cutlery, plastic backed picnic rug. A flask of water with china cups and tea bags and milk in small bottles. I do take a ready made flask if hiking but this means the tea hasn’t been sat stewing.

Our three suitcases are on the spare bed, we fly in a week. Washing and decisions on clothes were made a couple of days ago. I expect all packing to be done by end of the weekend.

I never understand the expired passport threads, we check ours every time we book a holiday.

I take pineapple and watermelon. 😁