I’m not the fun mom

I’m the mom that takes my kids to fun places, but I’m not the fun mom.

I’m not an elf on a shelf mom. I hear other moms talk about hiding their elf around the house and how much fun their kids have searching for him every morning. I just can’t get on board.

I’m not the mom that plays soccer with my kids for hours in the park or hide and seek all afternoon in the house. We go to the beach or pool almost every day in the summer, but I’m not the mom who wants to dive in and spend the entire 2 hours tossing them in the air while playing “underwater tea party”.

I want to be a fun mom…OK, maybe a ” funner mom”. I don’t need to be like the funnest mom around, that sounds exhausting.

I’m definitely not the fun snack mom. I had a 5 year old walk into my house and as sweet as she could, smile and say “You’re the mom with not fun snacks”. She’s right. I serve kids water, carrots and apples for snack while they’re over. Not fun.

I feel like Scrooge when the holidays come around. I don’t put up decorations, I don’t cook special meals, I don’t have a long list of traditions that I feel disappointed if I miss. This isn’t because I hate the holidays, I love spending time with family and planning adventures around the holidays, but the traditions and the long list of things I feel like I should be doing overwhelms me.

I’m not writing this to convince you to join me on the dark side and revolt against decorations. I’m writing this because of my internal conflict. I want to be a fun mom who decorates the house, and also I hate storing a bunch of stuff and spending the time getting out and putting away bins for every holiday.

I want to be the fun mom who dresses up hot dogs as mummies and plans full family themed costumes, yet I don’t make the time to plan ahead when the holiday comes around. I want to spend all day baking cookies and package them up and pass them around to our neighbors. I want to make heart shaped pancakes for valentines day and green eggs and ham for Dr. Seuss Day, but I don’t feel like I have the brain energy to make it happen in this season of life.

I want to look forward to carving pumpkins and building gingerbread houses. I buy everything with good intentions, and we always we end up carving our pumpkins for Christmas and building gingerbread houses in February. I’m a work in progress with good intentions but no follow through.

Like I mentioned, I pride myself in being the mom that gets my kids to fun places (and we really do have fun). But, every year when the holidays come around I struggle with feeling like I’m doing my kids a disservice by not fully embracing all of the extras around the holidays.

I’ve accepted my level of fun, my kids are perfectly spoiled and happy, and for the record we did hang one ghost that makes noise every time the kids walk by. They love it.