I’m obsessed with creating Family traditions. I want to there to be magical moments in my son’s childhood. Last weekend, my husband and I went away on a romantic getaway that was marred by the fact that my brother in law needed to bunk with us. Ixnay on the omanceray. My mom was picking me up from the airport with my little guy. I waved and he broke out into a run and jumped into my arms. It was pretty awesome. The whole morning he was Mr. lovey-dovey holding my hand, giving me hugs etc. Until I ruined it by pretending to leave him behind at my mom’s when he was being poky leaving. And I know the experts say you should never do this as it tells your child you might abandon him. He was so upset he didn’t talk to me the whole ride home. I probably have to start working a little harder on those magical moments!
True Confession Time: In my search for the best and most magical family moments, I sometimes turn into a Super-fun-time-beast. I’m working on taming my expectations so that if things don’t go the way I picture them in my head-that I’m still okay.
Last year, I was really interested in Bento Boxes and “themed” dinners/lunches. I decided to make a “Halloween themed” dinner for the Biscuit. The Another Lunch blog has these great ideas for Bento boxes and Muffin tin lunches. I found a super cute halloween muffin tin lunch and decided to recreate it to make a “magical moment.”
Of course I needed to buy a muffin tin, and little swords, and plastic condiment holders and a variety of other accompaniments because I wanted it to look exactly like hers.
Here is what I ended up with:
Pretty cute right?
Here is how the Biscuit reacted to it:
He hated it. Didn’t want to eat ANY of it. Not even the chocolate eyeballs. So I did what any self respecting mother who had planned this special meal for weeks and went to a variety of different store to get the correct items. I put him in a time out in his room.
*Sigh* He keeps asking for a themed meal again this year-so I guess he wasn’t too traumatized-or he recognized that I was. Of course the “meal” wasn’t the end result that I was thinking it was. It was us sharing any type of experience. This year, I promise to spend less time thinking about the “perfect meal” and more time just enjoying our simple times together.
How about you? Have you planned something and had go all wrong? How do you manage your expectations?
