19 signs you’re the parent of young Kids in Adelaide

Being a parent in Adelaide has its perks. It doesn’t take long to drive anywhere, reducing the chance of your child falling asleep in the car and having to attempt the dreaded car to cot transition (worse odds than gambling in Vegas), and it’s pretty easy to make friends because you already know half the people in Adelaide already, and if you don’t, then you have at least one mutual friend on Facebook.

There are also heaps of things to do with kids in good old rads, and lots of them are free (which is, coincidentally, the precise amount of money that I like most to spend on something). Although.. If it’s something I can sit and watch them do while I drink a coffee and don’t have to help in any way, shut up and take my money.

Here’s a few sure fire signs you’re the parent of young kids in Adelaide…

1. 1. On day one kindy drop off, another mum approaches you to say her brother in law went to school with your husband’s older sibling, and as it so happens you were in the year above her sister at school and you have multiple mutual friends you were otherwise unaware off. You both respond to this not altogether uncommon phenomenon with “that’s Adelaide!”.
   2. The day the Adelaide Zoo announced their giant Nature’s Playground development was the best day of your life. The day it opened you were happier than drunk Andrew O’Keefe at the Logies.
      
   3. You [your husband] has done a curb side stakeout at 4am to get poll position for the Adelaide Christmas pageant. With a box of chalk. And a 2L thermos of coffee. And the steely determination to take someone down if they so much as attempt to rock up at 7am and put a camp chair in front of you.
   4. Your kids say “heaps good” and chance [chah-nce], dance [dah-nce] and prance [prah-nce] and when holidaying in Queensland, you’ve been asked where in England you come from. [This has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of Thomas the Tank engine they watch][nothing at all].
   5. The closest you’ve come to seeing the Tour de France [frah-nce] in recent times is taking the kids to the Tour Down Under hoping to get a glance [glah-nce] of  Lance [lah-nce] Armstrong before he was caught in his unfortunate performance en[hah]ncement circumst[ah]nce.
   6. You have pictures of your kids with the pigs in the mall. And the pandas at the zoo. And if your kids are anything like mine, they are about as successful as this:
      
   7. You have quietly smirked to yourself about the fact that wang wang and funi sound a little bit like code name for the anatomy involved in “special cuddles” with daddy. [Childhood is short, immaturity is forever]
   8. If there’s a fruit that can be picked, you’ve picked it. And eaten most of it on the way home in the car. And washed it off the car seat upholstery. And you may never eat another strawberry again. Until next time.
   9. You’ve tried to make the malls balls into an outing and laughter echoed across the land.
      
   10. Bung Fritz. So, you still don’t know what it actually is [probably for the best], but whatever it is, your kids call it fritz not Devon. Possibly because it’s fritz not Devon. 
   11. You’ve imagined yourself on African Safari on the bus around Monarto. You’ve also enjoyed the rare and majestic subspecies of sound more commonly referred to as “silence” when the kids fall asleep on the drive home.
   12. When you hear the word “popeye” you think of a gentle chug along the Torrens with some crackers and a chardy, not the sailor man with arguably the most important celebrity forearms of our time.
       
   13. You’ve ridden a tiny model train at SASMEE park [and you kinda liked it]
   14. You’ve ridden on a slightly bigger train at the national railway museum [and you kinda liked it]
   15. You’ve ridden on a full sized train from Victor Harbour to Goolwa and back [and you kinda liked it]
   16. Your kids call it The Beach House, you call it Magic Mountain and never the twain shall meet.
   17. You’ve yelled “that’s Adelaide!!” at the TV when an Adelaide location appears through the round window on Playschool with a level of excitement that is disproportionate to how thrilling what has taken place actually is.
   18. You’ve clocked up approximately 19 billion steps wandering around the Royal Adelaide show, sitting your kids on various pieces of farming machinery whilst carrying 6kg worth of show bags and inflatable hammer. It may or may not have been raining. You may or may not have visited the toilets the same amount of times you’ve not won anything in your lifetime when attempting to hook a duck. You’ve rounded out the day by staying up four hours past the kids bedtime to yell colours at the fireworks whilst wondering if your dog will still be there when you get home.
       
   19. You’re secretly relieved Dazzleland no longer exists. Your last ride on the Jazz Junction roller coaster was in 1998 but you remember it like yesterday.

Hit us with your 20th sign you know you’re parent in Adelaide…