No Use in Crying over a Spilt Smoothie

Our usual morning routine is to get the kids eating breakfast, which includes a small glass of smoothie, while the Husband and I get organized for the day.  For some reason, a long time ago, the Husband and I thought it would make the smoothie more “fun” for the kids (read get them to drink it with less prodding by us) if we let them have a straw or two in their smoothie cup.

This morning, while I was in the kitchen making my breakfast, the little one managed to use both her straws to overturn her glass and spill her entire smoothie across the breakfast table.  In retrospect, it’s kind of remarkable that this doesn’t happen more often.  But, since it is a relatively rare event, the poor thing was horrified and on the verge of tears – so rather than respond with anger and/or annoyance, I looked at her and calmly said “It’s ok.  Really.  We all make mistakes.  Even mommy makes mistakes”.  To which she replied “What????  You make mistakes?”.

The subject of resilience has come up in my reading a lot this week; and the idea that the way parenting has evolved, we now try to shield our kids from experiencing anything that could be remotely negative or upsetting.  And as such, we’re not teaching them how to recover from making mistakes or how to pick themselves up after life throws them a curveball.

As much as I’ve tried to teach my kids the value of hard work, and how great it feels when you achieve a goal, I have clearly not shown them nearly enough just how many mistakes we (I) all make in a day; and more importantly, how we (I) work to rectify those mistakes.  And so, I will set about explaining to the little one, that while sitting down and having a good cry over a spilt smoothie might seem like the right thing to do, you can derive infinitely more satisfaction from cleaning up the mess and getting on with the day.

Now . . . back to those smoothies.  Yes, we do make the kids drink a smoothie every day.  We make enough so that each kid gets a small glass and the Husband and I get a large glass.  We use a Vitamix blender, but have also had a Blendtec and a Black and Decker blender along the way.  We use kefir as a base for our smoothies – but also add in some orange juice.  The Husband typically makes the smoothie, so he’s the one who knows all the ins and outs of what goes into it – but it’s usually a banana or two, an orange, an apple, and then whatever fruit we have in the fridge, and/or frozen organic berries to round it out.