I love family traditions. I love the special ones that only happen once a year, and I love the little ones that happen every day. Growing up, some of my favorite traditions were birthday dinners, opening one present on Christmas Eve, eating dinner as a family almost every night, back to school shopping every year, and watching prime time TV together (ER and Home Improvement really stand out in my mind.)
Now that Connor is getting a little bit older, I’ve been thinking about what traditions I want us to have. One big one is the dinner tradition. Some of my favorite memories growing up are from around the dinner table. Some of my least favorite memories also happened over dinner, i.e. sitting at the table crying because I had to finish eating my peas before I could get up or have dessert, and being told I couldn’t go to my 4th grade best friend’s birthday party because I wrote a mean note to a nerdy girl at school. Anyway, I love family table time, so we’ve started the eating dinner together tradition. Believe it or not, Connor actually protests this sometimes. “No dinner! No dinner!” But, even if he doesn’t eat anything, he sits with us at the table at dinner time. And, of course, most of the time he ends up eating. You don’t get to 40 pounds at 2 and a half by missing many meals.
Derek and Connor have started a really fun tradition in the past week or so. Now, I don’t think this tradition will last forever, but it’s a tradition of the moment nonetheless. Every evening after dinner they go on a walk. There is major construction going on right across the street so they go outside to see the “yellow tractors, backhoes, and dump trucks.” We are also lucky to live about 2 blocks from a fire station, so most nights they head over there to look at the firetrucks. Along the way, it’s almost guaranteed that they will see bubba trucks, police cars, motorcycles, buses, and maybe even an airplane or helicoptor. One time they even saw a chicken. All of these excite Connor to no end. Every single night, without fail, Connor cries hysterically when it’s time to come in. “No bubble bath! No bubble bath! More trucks!” He then comes over to me, gets really close to my face, and in between residual sniffles, tells me about everything he saw. He’ll tell me how many trucks he saw and what color they were. He’ll tell me all about the noises they made. It’s so cute. I love this new tradition. I love that Derek and Connor get fun time together. And maybe a little selfishly, I love that 30 minutes or so when it’s just me and Logan. I don’t know how long this tradition will last, but I know that it’s one I will look back on fondly.
Here’s the construction right across the street.
Connor is dumbfounded.
I think he would sit here all day if we let him.
