Postby Kathryn-in-Canada » Sat Jun 16, 2018 9:25 am
I used my hard knocks education many times yesterday.
First, I didn't plan to do anything that interested me. I was with a toddler and the point was to enjoy time with him, not explore my interests in a far away city. I was also with my little girl, so the point was to enjoy time with her, and let her enjoy her time in a far away city.
At lunch we talked about how we could not have had the same sort of day in our own city, she would have not allowed herself that much time away from home or allowed his schedule to be as broken up. Plus she wanted real French food which we were enjoying as we chatted!
Second, we over planned so left over half the possibilities undone. That was important.
Third, I knew to put in dgs' order at the restaurant as soon as that was decided, even though we still weren't sure what to have ourselves. She thanked me 3x for that. It was 2 in the afternoon, he had had breakfast at 7 and two small snacks in between so I knew he was hungry so getting him 'real food' (as opposed to raisins and cheerios) was high priority.
Fourth, I knew I'd be eating when dd told me to eat, so adjusted my expectations accordingly and ate whenever the opportunity arose. That I learned from our trip to Toronto. Dh and I didn't learn that until it was too late on the drive down (the drive back was just fine - it ties into lesson 1, dgs is all that counts, give up your own expectations!) I had lots of snacks with me so I could eat while walking behind the stroller (therefore he wouldn't see) but instead I ate when they ate. Dd had two breakfasts but was amazed I ate a sausage McMuffin then (giving dgs half my english muffin.) That worked out to a snack at 9 and lunch at 2. Wouldn't have happily made it that far if I had not eaten when the opportunity arose even if eating McD in Montreal seemed sacrilegious!
All these lessons I'd learned over the years as a mom and day care provider. An annual train trip was one of our day care field trips each year, taking the one hour ride into the city from a town 30 minutes from our home, picnic lunch at the station and take the train back. We never left the train station but I knew there was enough of interest to make it a good trip and the older kids looked forward to it each year. We'd do it during the spring break so I had all the older kids to help with the little ones (i.e. watch the others while I did potty breaks.)