Fear Of Landing

Wound a little too tight

(My apologies to those of you who may have read this from me already...feel free to skip it)

The other day I picked up a little free weekly paper that is available all over my community. This woman writes an article about children once a month and her article this month was about creating family traditions. I nearly had an aneurism. (Well, not literally, but almost) Her advice was:

               “The best way to start a tradition is to sit down with your spouse
                 and children and decide on a family tradition that works for everyone.
                 Make sure that everyone participates in the decision and remember
                 that the tradition doesn’t have to be elaborate, but it should be
                 something that everyone is excited about participating in.”

I can’t imagine a better way to beat the fun out of something than to have a scheduled family meeting where you debate and determine what the family tradition will be. I envision that the decision will be made to form a family workgroup and they will come back with charts listing the pro’s and con’s and a timeline for implementation of said tradition.

Imagine if you will that poor little Timmy would like to have the family join him outside for a snowball fight. So he asks dear father to come play. Dad grabs his coat and gloves and is on the way out the door when Mom asks where they are going. She hears of this snowball fight and decides that this is just the sort of family tradition that she might like her family to enjoy as an annual event. But wait, they can’t go outside yet. They must all sit down at the table and go over how this annual snowball fight tradition will play out. Will there be matching outfits? Will there be a temperature limit? Will there be rules about the size of the snowball? What if it goes a whole winter without snowing? Will there be a substitute activity? Should they schedule a photographer to come capture the moment for the annual Christmas card mailout? What if there are guests at the house? If there are children should a permission slip of some sort be signed? Medical releases? Timmy looks out the window and sees the neighbors outside pelting eachother with snowballs while his dad calls an attorney friend to check on liability issues with snowball related injuries to guests and his mom checks their favorite photographer’s website to see when they can schedule this fun family tradition.

There are times that I see these perfect families and I am so envious and wish my
family had it all together like theirs. But then I get a glimpse into their existence like in this article and I am proud of every disheveled moment in our lives.

Now, if you will excuse me I need to see what my kids have destroyed
while I wrote this.

(they are being WAY too quiet)

posted by fear.of.landing @ 11/29/2007