Visions of Parenthood vs. the Reality of Parenthood

There are these moments when I imagined what it will be like when my kids get a little older and we can we share experiences together.  Trips to the zoo, the library, the park....bedtime stories, family walks ~ in my head it all seems so blissful.

I've seen other families on these excursions and no one is screaming or yelling ~ not the parents or the kids.  They are all having a fabulous time.  Their kids are the same age as my kids.  They go on regular trips to all of these fabulous kid friendly places and I am empowered. Certainly we can do this.  We are ready.  And it is a good thing we go into these things with no expectations WHAT SO EVER.

My kids are at the perfect age for these little toddler excursions or moments.  They are 3 and 5.

We go equipped with snacks and water for our walk on the nature trail and it inevitably ends with someone dumping their snack, the other no willing to share, resulting tears and a trip cut short.

We take them to the book store prepared to spend a morning reading stories and playing at the train table and they are more interested Starbucks snacks or riding the "excavator" (escalator).  More tears ensue and another trip is cut short.

We snuggle in at bed and they beg for story time together as a family instead of one at a time.  After 10 minutes of negotiating who is sitting where, who is pulling covers, who isn't comfortable and why so 'n so's story is going first, story time ends with no story at all or individual story times that still aren't good enough.

My husband and I have learned to not take it personally.  We are not failing at this.  They are simply kids and to them sometimes spilt milk is the end of the world.  We work on trying to get them to adjust better in these situations, but I'm not so sure they are there yet.

So no matter how much prep work we have done, no matter if we are  using treasured vacation time for the journey, no matter how many situations we have accounted for ~ we are prepared to calmly call it quits and we finally quit having our own temper tantrums at failed special family outings.  It doesn't matter if a trip to the library was the best trip ever last Saturday ~ this Saturday it could resemble something closer to torture or hell.

Our visions of parenthood are not always a reality and we have learned to lower our expectations.