Stories Series: 2 Tips for Dealing with Failed Plans

Have you ever woken up with a really great idea of something fun you can do with your kids that you feel like is gonna just be such a memorable bonding family activity just to have everything go wrong every step of the way and be frustrated and end up creating equally memorable experiences, but not so positive.

Welcome to motherhood, the best job in the world. I'm your host, Kelsey Redd, a stay at home mom just like you, sharing practical parenting tips so you can find ultimate joy in mothering.

Today we're gonna talk about how to cope when plan A doesn't work out and how to, shall we say, salvage an experience with your kids. So let me tell you a story.

I had a brilliant idea today. I thought I've got some whipping cream in the fridge. How about I do a little activity with my kids? I think this is going to elevate me to ultimate homeschooler, homesteader, super mom status, because here's my idea. Let's make our own butter and have a cozy reading afternoon cuddled up on the couch while we spread homemade butter on some freshly baked straight out of the oven sourdough.

Sounds great, right? What could go wrong? Now I could have put it in my stand mixer, turned it on and walked away for ten minutes and come back to homemade butter like a regular woman living in the twenty first century. But instead, thought no, I really want my kids to get into this. I want them to just surround the bowl and watch in awe as this cream turns miraculously into butter, it'll be really engaging.

So let's get the hand mixer out and then we'll take turns and we'll talk about farms and we'll talk about cows and dairy and it's gonna be a whole thing. So, can I ask, when was the last time you made homemade butter? Anyone know about how long it takes to turn cream into butter? I'll give you a hint. About four times longer than you think it's going to.

That's how long it takes. So we're gathered around the bowl, we're all taking turns with the hand mixer, starts off great. Each person in the family has about a thirty five second attention span to their mixing job before they're ready to move on to the next activity. We each get, I don't know, maybe three turns each. And I'm feeling pretty good about this activity.

I'm feeling like, hey, everyone's sticking around. And that's when things start falling off the edge. My three year olds out of there, she's done. She's like, alright, where's the toys? My six year olds stay a little longer and we last maybe one more round before they've lost interest.

And now guess what, I'm standing next to this bowl of cream, beating it for the next, I don't know forty five minutes, trying to get this cream to turn into butter. And I'm remembering why I always end up eating my homemade butter as more of a salty whipped cream than an actual butter, because I don't have the patience to turn it into real butter, but this time I was committed. So my kids are gone, they're fighting, they're fighting over toys, they're playing, they've lost complete interest, they have no idea what I'm doing anymore. I'm stuck by this hand mixer because I can't walk away. Because I want this to turn into butter.

I hear my baby crying, the kids are picking up the baby, fighting over toys, asking me if they can come play with friends and I'm saying, no. We are going to make this butter. We are going to sit down and we're gonna eat toast and we're gonna read on the couch with homemade butter. That was the whole point of what we were doing today. Needless to say, by the time the cream has fully transformed into butter, The kids are gone.

They've left the house, they're looking for friends. I've given up, the baby's ready for a nap because the whole time he was awake, I was turning cream into butter. And I'm thinking, well, that was a bad idea. So how do we salvage these kinds of activities? I have two tips for you.

First of all, we have to manage our expectations. I probably could have assumed that this would not go according to plan and I might have accepted that my kids would be involved for about five minutes, which they were, and then it become a different activity that I will finish on my own and I'll let you guys know when the butter is ready and we can all try it together. That might have changed my thought process around the butter churning experience. So first is manage expectations. Second, we can choose if we want the outcome or the process, because we probably won't be able to get both, at least not in the timeline we had imagined.

In this case, I really wanted them to be engaged in the process. Yeah, I hoped that the outcome was going to be really fun, but I wanted them engaged in the process. And so I did call them back over right at the very edge after everything had turned and we were just getting to that really juicy buttery transformation. I called them over and I said, hey, look, remember a while ago we had whipped cream. Now it's getting all juicy and yellow.

That means it's turning into butter. That means we did it. We finished the job. And this was my way of salvaging because I knew that if I yelled at them for getting distracted or said, Hey, you guys all have to wait for me, we're gonna eat toast after this, that I would have been forcing something that just would have made everyone more contentious. So instead, I called them back over for the last second and said, Hey, watch when we drain out all this buttermilk, we're going to get the butter leftover.

We saw the butter and I said, Isn't that so cool? We made butter. Good job everyone. We did it. All right, see you.

And that was it. I turned over the outcome because I knew there was gonna be no cozy toast eating, reading cuddles that afternoon. And we still haven't done it. You know what, maybe tomorrow we'll eat some toast with butter. My tip for you to implement starting today, manage your expectations.

Most likely that means you're going to have to lower them and recognize what attention spans your kids have. And second, choose whether you are more invested in the outcome or the process because you probably can't have both and choose one of them to make the best out of instead of hoping for both to work out perfectly. I hope this helps you find a little bit more joy in mothering. If this episode added any value to your life, please click subscribe and find me on Instagram to share your stories. I'll see you next time on motherhood, the best job in the world.