When life gives you lemons you make lemonade is that super cliched quote that I like to say to my daughter when we are in situations where things aren’t going as planned. I literally gave her lemonade the first time we were having one of these moments so it took awhile for her to understand she wasn’t just going to get a glass whenever I said this.
We had a lemonade making situation today.
Long story short I thought Anika had a doctors appointment. We were out of the house super early, drove over an hour there, only to arrive and learn there was a scheduling mix up. We were in the wrong location and there wasn’t anyway that we were going to make it to the right one.
Yikes.
Both kids were wound up from the car ride. I was irritated and grumpy. I took a deep breath and realized I had two choices.
I realized I had two choices…
Feel cranky. Strap the kids back into the car seat and tell them to deal with another hour plus in the car.
Make some lemonade.
The answer was pretty clear. I explained the situation to them and asked how’d they feel about an adventure day. Of course they were on board. We sat in my car for a minute and I googled what was near us. I quickly learned we were by Salem Mass, home of the witches and it just happened to be October. What could be better then that? I asked Anika if she wanted to see some witches? She was on board.
The fifteen minute drive over included a lot of talk about the witches we would see, If I was really serious about their being witches, what do witches eat, could we get a witch snack, if they only have witches soup can we go somewhere else because we just read a book and they put frog poop in it, etc, etc. So yeah, she was excited.
I found a parking garage, plopped the kids in the stroller that I thankfully had in the trunk and we went for. Never ever would I have thought to take the kids on this type of adventure by myself. This was definitely a weekend with my husband type of trip. I would never wake up on a weekday and think gee let’s all go to Salem Mass… but none the less here we were.
First stop the visitor center.
I was thinking this is going to be great. Halloween in Salem! There is going to be so much great kids stuff!
I stopped and asked one of the employees there if she had any recommendations for things to do with young kids. She just looked at me like I was crazy. She basically told me in the kindest way possible, you are in the wrong place. This is a place where they talk about real witches, not the Disney versions. I mentioned a couple of the things I saw signs for and she let me know those places included images of decapitation, burning people and other scary graphic nightmare inducing scenes.
Time to make some more Lemonade.
So my next question to her was do you perhaps have any suggestions of any place I could take these two kids? Anything at all? She mentioned the Peabody Essex Museum across the street.
We headed over and much to my relief we found an amazing kids area where we spent the entire morning exploring. Anika did not want to leave, but the promise of a grilled cheese lured her out.
I knew, however that I was going to be in trouble because I had already promised witches. I just waited for it.
As we walked to the restaurant Anika asked me when we were going to see the scary stuff. Darn it. She wasn’t going to forget.
Time to make some more lemonade.
I told her that perhaps some of the exhibits might be a little too scary for us to go to but maybe if she looks really hard she would see real witches on the street, because they might still live here. She would have to really look though because they might be in disguise.
Oh boy did this work and thank you, thank you, Salem in October because if there is ever a place you are going to encounter people that look like real witches it was here.
Anika was in heaven. Every two minutes I would hear from the stroller, “hey mom come here”. Then a little whisper, “I think that women over there is a witch”. It was adorable.
We ate lunch and had some ice cream and then stopped at a couple of the places that looked pretty tame on the outside to learn more and find out if any where kid friendly. After a couple of successful yes answers I was feeling better. It turns out there is stuff to do in Salem with kids and perhaps the visitor center person was being a tad bit dramatic, but it was late anyway and my youngest needed a nap, so we decided to save them for a return trip.
So three amazing things happened today
1. I had a fun adventure day with my kids doing something I would never have thought to do with them had we not been thrust into this situation.
2. I got a fun family day idea for the future with my husband.
3. Most importantly I taught my kids through my actions, not my words how to handle life when things don’t go as planned.
Life can be tough. As a mom and former school counselor I believe one of the most important things I can teach my kids is to be resilient. To roll with the punches when the unfortunate stuff happens. I was listening to a podcast the other day that explained how important if was for children to learn to handle the small disappointments now when they are young, so when they are older and the disappointments are larger they will have the confidence in themselves to handle them. I feel like I am successfully doing this with my children, one cup of lemonade at a time.
I wish I could say I alway handle these moments with as much grace and creativity as I did today. I don’t, but I’m working on it and if I can get it right about 50 percent of the time I feel like I’m doing pretty well. And hey, at least I asked someone before I took my kids to the wax museum with the decapitated people, right? No nightmares for the win!
