Playing hooky...

Our kids have been battling the back to school, every day sports/extracurricular activities, late night, early morning, fatigue.  Along with a rotating everlasting cold and numerous cough induced family wide wake up calls, we were generally not getting along.  So last Friday at the end of another long week and a very late bed time, Chris and I decided to let the kids sleep in and surprise them with a day off from all necessary duties.   They all slept an hour past the normal time we begrudgingly shake them awake and convince them it is worth getting up for another day.   Which tells me that their little bodies needed the rest. Scarlett woke up wondering why it was 7:30, Dominic woke up oblivious to the fact that it was Friday, and Max was just happy it was his weekend.

I informed them that we were skipping school and going to Knotts Berry Farm.  And so we did, and it was the perfect reset for our family.  If you can believe it, Scarlett actually laughed and showed emotion...like happy emotion, not woe is me emotion.  And she said it was the best day ever.  So parenting win.  It was so refreshing to see my kids be kids.

It is so easy to get caught up in the "we must" and "we have to" part of life, and unfortunately, I am the biggest enforcer of these statements in our home.  I can get so fixated on "but your teacher says" and "our duties are", and equate the kids lack of desire to perfectly perform insignificant menial tasks, as failure.   Thankfully Chris is the exact counter to this insecure part of my parenting.  He reminds me what is important, and the perfectly performing child isn't it.  But a happy, well rounded child definitely is.  So step one to resetting my mindset and remembering that my kids are still kids, be okay with playing hooky (and chose a theme park that has literally NO LINES).