This morning the family went to church like we normally do on non-swim meet Sundays. I was in a great mood, that weather that I have been looking for was here, if only for a day. The sun was shining, the temps were at least the high 20's damn near balmy, as of late, and as a bonus we were on time.
After church we went out for lunch at the Mongolian BBQ place, one of those fill the bowl, and they'll wok it in front of you places. The kids were pretty good, and the food was pretty good, Holly only fell off her chair once, Ian had all the meat he could eat, the girls counted the number of holes they could bite into their tortilla before they ran out of room, we only got told we have our hands full 4-5 times, you know pleasant...
After lunch I wanted to take the kids to the old fashioned candy store that is around the corner. Kevin asked, "why do we have to do that every time we come here?" There is no good answer for that. The kids don't need candy. We had just spent the past 3 hours out of the house, It's not an extra exciting place, I guess it is tradition. A dumb one maybe, but just the idea that the kids get used to doing certain things every time as a family.
It made me think again about my own family/childhood. I remember going with my dad on payday Saturday mornings to get doughnuts, and picking out the one with the most crap on it even though we both knew I wouldn't eat it. I remember going through the cans and cans of buttons at my Great Aunt Mary's house even though they never changed. Kevin remembers always stopping for ice cream on the way home from his grandparents farm.
It make me realize that it is not always the stuff that you think is going to make an impact, but instead it is often the things that are a certainty. Kids thrive on consistency, and order, neither of which come naturally to me as a parent. As my friend Laura M. says, it's only the good parents who care about what they might be doing wrong, the crappy ones just don't worry about it. I guess in theory today I did something right....
2 comments:
I wanna be in your family! That sounds like so much fun!!
Those simple things ARE the things that will stick with them. I clearly remember going to George's Bakery on Sat. a.m. with my mom, sitting on a spinning stool, eating a glazed donut and drinking a carton of chocolate milk. And, that was about 33 years ago! If it was still here I would do the same with my kids!
Also, at my grandfathers funeral I spoke of my childhood growing up with grampa. A couple of the things I remember fondly were riding the tractor on Saturdays to go pick mulberries along the timberline and always getting to stop in Blue Grass for Ice Cream on the way home from taking hogs to Oscar Meyer.
What you are doing is creating those kind of memories for your kids. And those kind of moments are the ones that matter most.
(PS - I wanna go too!)
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