FFF

Forced family fun. Add another "F" and it would stand for fishing.

When I first heard of the the upcoming fishing trip my husband, father-in-law and brother-in-law were planning I thought to mysef: "Take the boy, leave the girl and she and I will have a fun week of bonding." Sounded like a perfect plan...until the girl turned on me and chose fishing instead. Whaaaaat! Who raised this child? Who taught her to have an independent thought and make her own decisions...oh that's right. That would be me...hmmm I guess I'm a better teacher than I thought.

So then the choice was presented to me: Stay home and have a week at home to paint walls that have needed painting, garden, read...hang with friends OR go along sharing a cabin with three men, three kids and one bathroom.

My first choice was to stay home until I thought about memories that would be made without me. I imagined my family returning with stories that started with the words "Mom you should have seen..." or "Mom you totally missed..." OR "Mom, you should have been there to..." . So my heart knew the answer and I went. I also know my children well enough to know that fishing all day and all night is not yet in their DNA. Maybe someday - maybe not...but for now their attention spans are limited (especially the boy's) to a couple hours. What can I say - they like variety. So when they had their fill of fishing they would choose to stay back and read (ok maybe not) swim, watch a movie, play basketball etc. This is exactly what happened and since I was there they had that opportunity. It also afforded the guys the opportunity to have time with each other without kids. Priceless - and rare.

There were moments of relaxation, reading, and recreation. There was forced family fun, and forced family fishing fun. Am I glad I went? Yes. I knew I would be. I knew I would regret staying home more than I would regret going even if it would have rained every day and no one would have caught a thing. Regret is final...memories are priceless.

I may suggest the kids and I stay home next time though ;-)