We are back from our family reunion and let me tell you: it was FANTASTIC!
Don't study the picture too close, as it is not the "official" family photo. The timer on my camera didn't work, so PaulaShawn, I need a copy of yours the minute you get home! I think that's your shadow in the grass, but that's not good enough. We need to see your not-ugly face. (You worried that would be on the blog, so there it is. Now you can relax, as you know I will now let it go and never mention it again. Ha!)
Apparently, I don't laugh enough because my cheek muscles were burning by Friday night. (No pain no gain!) I ate so much I thought I would pop. (You read that wrong. It's POP, as in explode.) My kids played so hard they were limping by Sunday. (Good thing this isn't the week for my Protective Services visit, or they'd be confiscating the children.) All in all, the family reunion gave me hope. Why?
Because as grown ups, my siblings and I actually like each other.
I'm the youngest of six. Let me say it again: YOUNGEST. Neiner neiner neiner. Yes, I'm immature. (Hello, didn't I just say I'm the youngest?) Since my oldest sister and two brothers were teens when I was born, I don't have a lot of memories of them before they got married and started their own families. But from stories I've heard, there is the smallest possibility that all the siblings didn't always get along. And from my faulty memory of growing up with PaulaShawn, my un-twin, we might have fought just a bit too. (Hopefully we will have a post on that later, won't we PaulaShawn?) Janice was right in the middle and I don't think she ever fought with anyone. We'll call her Sister Nice. (She doesn't wear a nun's habit, although she would look just as good in one as she looked in her ABBA costume.)
Anyway, back to my point: just a wild guess here, but I think that we kids drove our parents batty from time to time. And now we can't get enough of each other; plus all the cousins are kindred spirits and get along like bananas and peanut butter. Or like chocolate chips and peanut butter. Or EVEN BETTER: they get along like bananas, peanut butter, and chocolate chips. I bet it makes my parents go "Yay! We succeeded! We raised a happy family!"
Happiness on a plate. Please tell me you eat this too?
Let me tell you, there are times when I worry about this: (Not about the weirdness of eating bananas with peanut butter and chocolate chips. Worrying about
family.) times like when we are leaving for said family reunion and one child refuses to get in the car. Anytime you take a bunch a different personalities and make them live together, you are going to have some disagreements. The difference between a family and a college dorm is that an unhappy family member doesn't have the option to move to a different place next semester. They are stuck together. Forever. That means you have to figure out a way for all those different personalities to get along. (If you thought that sounded pessimistic, let me re-phrase. Families GET to be together forever and always because they LOVE each other!!! Better? )
With my kids, we have five very different personality types:
1. Mr. Goes-with-the-flow
2. Mr. Goes-against-the-grain
3. Mr. Not-large-but-always-in-charge
4. Mr. Let-me-go-outside-and-no-one-gets-hurt
5. Mrs. Tough-as-nails-but-still-a-girly-girl
In case you couldn't figure it out, some of those personalities don't work well together. Add in a busy schedule and a mom who spends half her time in imaginary land and some days, you have a family that feels like it might self destruct. So how do I keep it together amidst
the chaos?
I don't. I just fake it. That's one of my favorite words of wisdom. "Fake It 'Til You Make It." I cannot offer any advice on good parenting. But I can tell you what doesn't work:
1. Don't threaten to take away something you can't really take away. You can't say, "You be quiet or I'm going to come over there and remove your voice box." Nor can you threaten to take away your children's future happiness by saying something like, "If you don't shape up I'm going to take your college fund and travel across Europe."
2. Don't curse them and their posterity by saying, "I hope you have twelve kids just like you." Not only can you not control how many children they will have, you must also remember at some point they will ask grandma to babysit. Do you really want to babysit twelve miserable children? No.
3. Don't say things like, "We never should have bought you off those traveling Gypsies." It will hurt the Gypsies' feelings and then you won't be invited to one of their outlandish weddings.
4. When children are fighting with each other, don't tape them together on the time-out chair. I've heard of people doing this. I've even heard of people taping them together for an entire day so they are forced to do everything together. I tried it once (I was at my whit's end. And I used packaging tape, not duct tape, OK?) but the kids thought it was cool and wanted more tape, all over their bodies. In fact, child #4 still requests that I do it to him. "Remember that time you taped us together?" I really don't like how that one sounds. (My Protective Services officer doesn't like that one either. You know I'm totally kidding about CPS, right?)
Note: that was not taken at my home nor is it my child.
5. Don't send the kids outside with a box of matches and tell them, "Whatever you do, don't start the forest on fire." (That one is not based on experience. It's just based on common sense.)
So here's the burning question: how do you get all those different personalities to be happy at least most of the time and how do you help them learn to be friends? This is me asking for advice. What works in your family? How did/do your parents keep you from fighting? What do you do with your own kids? Help me or I might not survive the summer!
