The Images In My Head

I don't think my family is good at fun.

Last night was the "Family Fun" night at the kids' preschool. Hot Guy had to work, so I decided that ChunkyMonkey should stay at home with my mom, 2 kids being enough for one tired woman to keep track of at a gathering filled with sugar and small children.

Of course Ironflower was drawn to the painting activity like moth to flame. . .which meant that I spent a lot of the evening cleaning blue paint off of her costume.

And Lovebug hated the noise. He ran into classmates, but they were all shy with each other (as opposed to how they'd been at the hay ride the day before) and overwhelmed by the crowd. So he pretty much wanted to leave from the moment we got there.

I spent most of my night dragging Lovebug around in search of Ironflower. Until the reptile show. Which my kids had enjoyed at a small play date last year, but this year it freaked Lovebug out. And Ironflower claimed not to like it, but I think what she didn't like was the large number of kids between her and the animals. Meanwhile I stood with some other preschool moms, having nothing to say while I fretted over my children's unhappiness.

Somehow I'm reminded of some of  last events I attended in school gyms - junior high dances. Before every dance, I'd have this image in my head of how it would go - the boy I liked would ask me to dance, I'd look impossibly cool while dancing, my friends would all tell me how great I looked - and it NEVER went that way.

These family events seem to go the same way for me. Before we go, I have this image in my head of the fun we're going to have - the kids will laugh and smile, I will chat amiably with acquaintances, the kids will behave - and it never works that way. Lovebug hates something about the event and clings, they both grab food and drink like mannerless heathens, I have brief conversations that I'm too preoccupied to pay attention to and at the end,  Ironflower says it wasn't good enough anyway.

I guess I'm just not destined to live up to the images in my head. Maybe I should stop trying.