We took the kids to see the new Star Wars movie yesterday. We bought 7 tickets to be exact because we added the guy that Ava is dating. We all get there and Lucia decides she really doesn’t want to be there and she wants to über home to meet her friend to do something else. Then Ava declares she really never wanted to see Star Wars since she’s seen none of the others in the series (when I asked her if she wanted to go the day before seems would have been a much better time to tell me.) Her date was smart enough to just say he was “cool with anything”. The tickets were pre-purchased so we couldn't get them into another movie, so we took out a second mortgage to buy popcorn and drinks, and finally got into the theater with 6 people. About 20 minutes into the movie Ava shoulder taps me and her and her date wanted to permission to “bail since they didn’t understand the movie” and would rather go meet his friends to hang out. So the upshot of all of that is my planned out “family movie night” was the two remaining kids, John and I. Very, very aggravating (and needlessly expensive). Not what I envisioned at all. Common theme for this weekend though is to roll with the punches.
The silver lining however was the ah-ha moment I had this morning when I went to yoga and the instructor talked about listening to yourself and voice inside to guide your vision for the new year….which seemed to coincide pretty perfectly with the moment in the movie last night where a bit character says to one of the main characters, “but how do you know?” and he stops, pauses and says, “I just know.” In other words, the force showed him the way. So that’s my yoga AND Stars Wars take away. Following your instinct (inner voice, gut feeling, compass or whatever you want to call it), it’ll show you the way for the new year.
Today John and I went shopping for Ava’s birthday which is just a few days away (winter babies are so hard, I wish someone had warned me). My big take away was my revelation from watching John try and shop for Ava, while being surrounding (or at least in close proximity) to stuff HE wanted. Since the kids were little I’ve taken them each individually to shop for birthday presents for friends, or for siblings or family, trying to teach them to focus on someone else and be thoughtful about it--even if for just 5 short minutes. Ava is horrible at it, she can’t make it 3 minutes without wanting something for herself. The other kids are now better to varying degrees (but they are still kids though, and generally kids are bad at this.) I made myself nuts trying to make these gift buying expeditions “teaching moments” and let me tell you, take a 7 year old to the toy store and tell her to pick out a gift for her friend? It’s a nightmare. Anyway, what I realized today watching John is that it was probably a total waste of time because Ava is no better at focusing at 17 than she was at 7, and John is no better at 50. It's just personality. I had to constantly refocus him, he just couldn’t stop the distraction of seeing things that he might potentially want (he came home with shoes for himself, and I'm lucky it was just shoes.) So basically, lest you forget, your control as a parent over personality is pretty limited. It's not your fault that you can't train/teach it out of them. I was probably better off foregoing those miserable toy store trips with Ava and saving myself the stress because my guess is she’s still going to turn out just like her dad. There are worse things :-), but it does get expensive.
I will also note that because I was so dead set on making this weekend the poster-weekend for 2020 since it’s the first kick off weekend, I immediately had the worse sleep EVER last night. Like ever, ever. Which makes me want to eat 4 of my new favorite gluten free powdered donut that I’m obsessed with (instead of the more appropriate one). Lesson there is to not hold too tightly to any one vision, there is a good chance you have to roll with plan B (which is NOT get nearly enough sleep on the kick off weekend of the new year AND over indulging in too many sweets which will be appropriately blamed on fatigue).
Signed, ME {lv}
Comments