All my daughter wanted was to sip tea with giant sugar cubes at the magic tea house. Little did she know that I was about to disappoint her in every way. Would this day go down in our history together as a day of disaster? Or a day of redemption?
I woke up early this morning, showered, and straightened my hair. I even threw on a little makeup and picked out some cute dangly earrings. What in the world could have motivated me to go through all this hustle and bustle before 8am?? It’s simple. I had a date. A date with the girl who made me a mom. And I couldn’t wait.
Last Tuesday, my big seven-year-old girl came marching up to me and requested that we go on a date together to the magical tea place in the next town over. My eyes lit up and my heart filled with all sorts of gooey mushy mommy love. My kid wanted to spend time with me. For those of you who have followed my journey into motherhood, you know that parenting my spicy little firework hasn’t always been the easiest thing for me. We are so different in so many ways. I often find myself scratching my head thinking, where on Earth did you come from little girl?? And then, there are other times when we find our relationship strained because we are a little too similar. We can easily evolve into that whole, “I’m not stubborn, you’re stubborn!” kind of thing.
Another area in which we are very similar is that we are both really good at making plans and then putting in the necessary effort to see those plans come to life. As a baby and toddler, however, this gifting of Maisie's was a little tough to manage sometimes. She has had a plan for her life from day one and when it didn’t go the way she wanted, everyone around her knew it. If you wanted to try to get her to change her mind, good luck. And if you were the one who got in the way of her seeing her plan come to fruition, watch out.
When she finally started to grow out of the crazy toddler phase, I started introducing the idea of “letting it go and going with the flow.” Oftentimes my attempts were complete disasters (because, hello, my girl had a plan). But, even during our hardest and trying of times, I always held onto the hope that as she grew older we would learn to grow closer together and not let our differences push us apart. I very much yearned to have my daughter grow up to be someone who would choose to spend time with me.
So, when my little girl let it be known that she wanted to go on a date with me, I was more than ready. We checked the calendar and hatched a plan to go to the fancy tea place for breakfast on Saturday morning. Maisie was ecstatic. She couldn’t wait to drink tea from a fancy cup and watch the sugar cubes disintegrate in a pool of warm deliciousness. We had a plan and it was going to be perfect.
She put on her fanciest dress, donned her favorite wedges and we were out the door, ready for a delightful date together. When we arrived at the restaurant we were literally skipping our way to the entrance. I swung the front door open and we let the warmth and coziness of the beautiful restaurant envelope us. I was so excited I’m pretty sure I even continued skipping all the way to the front desk. As I was about to say, “a table for two please”, the woman behind the desk smiled and asked, “Reservation?” My heart skipped a beat as I thought, “No. No no no no no, please don’t tell me we need a reservation????” I politely explained that we didn’t have a reservation and held my breath as I asked her if we needed one. She kindly nodded her head and gently explained that they were completely full for the entire day.
Full the entire day. No magical morning date with my daughter quietly sipping tea while we enjoyed the pleasantness of each other’s company.
And, quite possibly…the day would now be clouded with the disappointment from our derailed plans. I had not anticipated that our glorious Mommy-Daughter date would somehow turn into a teachable moment about how things don’t always go the way we want them to. I didn’t want to “let it go and go with the flow!” I had wanted this plan to go smoothly as much as she did. But once the woman spoke those final words, I knew I would have to take this as an opportunity to model for Maisie what it looks like to be hopeful when your plans are abruptly cancelled without your approval.
I smiled at the woman, thanked her, and knew that I would have to throw on a whole lot of positivity and just hope that it would overflow onto my daughter. As we were walking to the car, hand in hand, she kept glancing back at the tea house as her eyes filled with tears. She wasn’t being bratty about it. She was just so genuinely disappointed. I quietly said a prayer in my heart asking God to help me redeem this day. I was disappointed too but I was determined to still give my girl a day of quality time that she would remember. We climbed back into the car and I said, “Ok, I know you’re disappointed. I’m bummed too that we can’t go have tea. But..we are still going to have fun today!” Then I said, “How about we pray and ask God to give us a really good idea of what we should do today?”
Maisie slowly lifted her hand to her face, wiped her tears away and said, “Ok.”
She had no idea in that moment just how incredibly proud I was of her. When you’re a kid, it’s really hard to deal with bummer things like this. When you’re Maisie, it might just be even a little bit harder. It’s not easy for anyone to shake it off and move forward without letting the sadness cling. But she was determined to do it.
After my quick prayer asking God for some fun ideas, I sounded totally calm on the outside but was actually panicking a little on the inside…Then, just moments after I finished the prayer, I felt God drop an idea into my mind.
FROZEN TWO CAME OUT IN THEATRES!!
Could the magical snow queen Elsa from Arendelle redeem my mommy failure of not making a reservation to the gorgeous restaurant that serves tea with giant sugar cubes? I had an immense amount of hope that she could. Thank you Jesus. And thank you Disney.
I quickly looked up showtimes on my phone and saw that there was a showing in 40 minutes. We could make that! It could happen! I turned toward her and very quietly (for dramatic effect) said, “Sweetie….how would you like to go see….FROZEN 2????”
The moment I said that word “Frozen”, Maisie's face lit up like the Christmas tree in Rockefeller Center and her squeals of excitement were loud enough that I’m sure the people in the restaurant may have heard them.
We had just enough time to scoot over to Chick-fil-A for a speedy lunch and then made it to the theatre just as the movie was starting. I’m normally a total cheapskate, but I told Maisie I was so proud of how well she handled the bumps in the road today and marched her over to the snack stand to completely overpay for a small bucket of popcorn. She was elated.
The movie was magical. The music was fantastic. I cried and we both laughed so hard our stomachs hurt. It was absolutely delightful. As we were walking back to our car I said ‘You know, I think we would have had fun at the tea restaurant..but I’m kind of glad we got to go see this movie.” She reached over to grab my hand and smiled as she said, “I liked this EVEN BETTER!!”
She let it go and went with the flow. Granted, I think Elsa helped greatly with the letting go part (😉😆) But, before I had even offered up the new idea, she had already wiped those tears away and said she was ready to figure out a new plan.
Thank you Lord for using this day to show us that life is unpredictable, and that sometimes, being able to go with the flow might take you to an even better place than you were before.
Blessings, Shanna MacKenzie
