Breakin’ the Rules

Paul and I had been planning on taking the kids up to Disney this weekend for about a month. As luck would have it, I received a very big assignment from a client that made me reconsider going – I thought maybe we should stay home, and I would work over the weekend instead, to make sure I met my deadline with as little last minute stress as possible.

I actually spoke with my life coach about this, and we talked about my priorities in life. My family is my biggest priority. Although I love what I do, my family comes before work. Being reminded of this helped me to decide that we should still go on our trip as planned.

As my life coach and I were talking, she said, “What would it be like if you left all of your work behind at home? What if you left all of the ‘rules’ of life behind for the weekend?” Wow! I loved that idea! I was sure if I put my energy into having a fun, “rule-free” weekend with Paul and the kids that I would be motivated to work hard the following week on my project.

So, as we started driving up to Orlando, I pulled out a piece of paper and pen and started talking to the kids about rules. I started on a really boring note, without telling them where I was going with the idea. I was asking them about what rules we have at home that they have to follow. They listed things like washing hands, brushing teeth, going to bed on time, etc.

Next, I told them my idea about leaving the rules behind this weekend and just having fun! They LOVED it, so we talked about which rules we could break. This wasn’t going to be a “no holds barred,” no rules at all weekend, but we wanted to try and let them break as many as possible. Here are a few examples:

At lunch that day, we decided not to enforce our limit on dessert – they each had a whole bag of the fun size M&M minis instead of half the bag (our normal rule). The smiles on their faces were HUGE!

We also broke the bedtime rule of 7 p.m. I think we got back to the hotel around 9:30. Very late for those two!

Then, Tyler decided he wanted to either not brush his teeth at all or brush them with his finger! Alyssa said she absolutely must brush her teeth. That was not something she wanted to give up! But in the end, neither of them ended up brushing them at all.

The next morning when we woke up, there was condensation all over the sliding glass doors in the hotel room – we let the kids draw in it, something we would usually not allow at home!

It’s pretty cool that something that started out as an internal struggle for me turned into a memorable experience for the whole family!