More Family Stories
- We tried a family game night with a new board game nobody had played before. The rules took forty minutes to understand, the actual game took ten, and half the family quietly agreed to never play it again.
- My son insisted he could ride his bike without training wheels. I ran alongside him for a full block, let go when he seemed steady, and watched him ride triumphantly into a bush. He got right back up and asked to try again.
- I asked my daughter what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said 'a mom, like you, but cooler.' I asked what makes me not cool. She listed four specific examples without hesitation.
- I tried to negotiate a later curfew for my teenager using a carefully rehearsed argument about trust and responsibility. He agreed immediately, no pushback at all, which somehow made me trust the whole situation even less.
- My daughter wanted to learn how to swim, so we spent the whole summer at the pool practicing. By August she was swimming laps better than me, and reminded me of that fact at every possible opportunity.
- I bought a treadmill with genuine intentions of using it every day. Six months in, it's become the most expensive clothes rack in the history of our bedroom, and I've made peace with that outcome.