When What You’re Doing Isn’t Working

Sometimes what you really, really, really want doesn’t work.

In our case, it was our normal night routine that we have done for years, that had more or less, led to quiet, restful evenings. But it has failed us lately. Even though I feel like all we do is play, use energy, and spend time together, suddenly this last week the boys were bouncing off the walls starting at 5 p.m.

Should they have been? No, it made no sense. Could we have buckled down, insisted on quiet evenings? Probably. And after bedtime, could we have insisted they lie quietly in their beds and not come out and STOP TALKING FOR GOODNESS SAKES? Oh, trust me, we considered it. But it didn’t actually solve the problem, which was for some reason, they had way too much energy in those evenings and we were all going crazy and getting frustrated trying to keep them contained.

Sometimes we hold on to how we think things are supposed to be, like quiet children and quiet evenings. It would have been easy to say, “Children are supposed to sit at dinner and read books quietly before bedtime and lie quietly in bed until they fall asleep.”

But that’s not what was actually happening. What was actually happening was that they had too much energy to do any of that well, and we were just getting frustrated. So we decided to deal with the root problem (the fact they weren’t tired) instead of just dealing with the surface problem (not sitting quietly).

So we’ve started eating early and then we go to the park until bedtime.

Last night, we played with other people’s footballs. (Oh, the despair when we couldn’t take them home.) And we wore other people’s hats. (Oh the despair when we couldn’t take the sparkly Elsa hat home.)

 

We rolled down hills.

We flew higher than the mountains.

We told secrets and slid down slides together.

And after a night of running and rolling and flying, there were no crazies at home. We came home, did a quick bath, and the boys went straight to bed, Lincoln only coming out once because he forgot to bring his bulldozer to bed with him. (In this house, there is never a bulldozer left behind.)

In other words, something crazy happened. Instead of clinging to the idea of what we thought should happen, we dealt with what was actually happening. And sometimes by dealing with what is actually happening, you get what you wanted in the first place.

And maybe, if you’re really lucky, you’ll also get to wear a pink sparkly hat in the process.