A few weeks ago, I wrote about building a foundation for your kids and how vital that is.
The beautiful thing is that once the foundation is laid the fun can begin! Here are some examples from my life:
Instead of yelling to get our kids up in the morning, my husband bought an old bugle at a garage sale and blasted his version of reveille (it was truly horrible). If that failed to rouse them, he’d move his huge speakers to the bottom of the stairs and play polka music at top volume. The kids will never forget it.
On boring days at home when the kids were getting crabby, I would announce it was opera day and I’d refuse to respond to them unless they sang whatever they wanted to say to me. It was impossible for them to stay crabby while singing everything at the top of their lungs.
My husband loved piling the kids into the car and going thru a drive-thru. He’d pronounce everything he ordered incorrectly (i.e. a whopper became a “hooper”, etc.) and then he would turn the car around and back thru the drive-thru so the poor kid in the passenger seat had to pay.
Whenever one of my kids got sassy, I announced that as their mother I had the right to change their name whenever I felt like it. And, then I would give them a crazy name and refuse to call them anything else until their attitude changed.
Lest you think that all this fun was one-sided, my acorns didn’t fall far from the tree and our kids kept us on our toes.
We had a life-size cardboard cutout of a race car driver (because he looked exactly like a friend of ours). The kids loved putting it right outside doorways to scare us to death. That poor thing got punched in the face more times than we could count.
They’d also love to wait until I reached for the TV remote and hand me my phone instead and watch me punch random numbers until I realized what they had done.
There are so many serious decisions and issues that come up while you are parenting. It can be pretty overwhelming and daunting at times. So, once you’ve laid that foundation, don’t forget to relax and have a little fun along the way. Those are the times your kids will look back on fondly and remember forever.
How does your family unwind and have fun?
