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The Imperfect Outing
Family life

The Imperfect Outing

I am a planner by nature and I also want things to be perfect all the time. 

I can’t help myself, I can spend hours upon hours planning in an attempt to make everything as perfect as humanly possible. The reality of this is that I have a 19-month-old as well as a 3-year-old. Now, as any parent knows, nothing seems to go as planned when you have toddlers. But then add in the fact that my husband and I own two businesses and are very hands-on, now really nothing ever seems to go as I had planned it. 


As I mentioned earlier, I am a planner and a perfectionist, and when things don’t go how I envisioned, it can make me anxious and annoyed. Dane, my husband, is the opposite, he is so low maintenance and can go with the flow, which can sometimes drive me up a wall. 

A few weeks back, we had planned to take our boys on a hike. It was a beautiful day and we wanted some quality outdoor time as a family. Just as we were getting ready to leave, I get a call; I needed to go and deal with a work situation that had just come up. Conveniently it was close to the hiking trail we had wanted to go on.

By the time we got to our hike, it was close to nap time, the weather was getting overcast, and I was ready to call the whole adventure off. I could tell it wasn’t going how I had wanted and I was just over it.  

But we ended up attempting the hike. It truly was a beautiful trail perfect for toddlers since it was mostly flat. It went past some little community gardens and fields of tall trees, and had an incredible mountain view--what more could you ask for, right? 

Our hike that I had perfectly planned lasted maybe all of twenty minutes before it started raining, and as you can imagine, we didn’t make it very far in those twenty minutes with toddlers in tow. But you know what, my boys had a blast! They collected leaves and other “treasures,” jumped in puddles, and watched a massive worm crawl through a rock pile. 


The lesson here that I try and remind myself is that everything does not need to go perfect. This outing that I almost canceled because it wasn’t how I planned ended up being perfect. We spent quality time as a family and my kids couldn’t have been happier--that’s what matters.

So as much as I always want perfection, it doesn’t have to be. Ultimately, all I want is my kids to have great memories, and if things don’t go as planned, it's okay! Enjoy the moment, enjoy the family time, and remember sometimes it is okay to go with the flow.

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Samantha N

Business owner balancing family, work and our love for travel. Fueled by coffee and my two boys.

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