Ok, I have to say, this word mis-mories is my absolute new favourite word! You’ll see why after you read this post!

There are times when you know the family will have fun by getting out of the house and doing something, something as simple as a hike, let’s say! BUT, the act of getting ready and out the door can be a whole other battle.

“I don’t wanna go!” or “Why can’t I just stay home?” or “Why do we have to go out?”

The other day, my husband and I were getting sooo impatient trying to convince the kids to get out the house to have some family fun that I decided that I would just go with the idea of being miserable together! We both knew that they would have fun, we both knew that as soon as we started our adventure that they would want to stay out even longer than the short time we ‘promised’ it would be! So, I started to joke about it with them. Instead of telling them that I knew they’d have fun and that they should just trust me and blindly follow, I started joking, “Why don’t we just be miserable then as a family! We will just go, be miserable together, make some memories, then get home and watch a movie or something!”

After they finally agreed, I looked at the kids, with a straight and SUPER serious face and said, “Ok, but you need to promise me, that while we’re out we can’t smile (obviously they smirked), we can’t point out or look at anything interesting, and we definitely cannot, under any circumstances, laugh!” Now they were smiling at each other! They were still resistant to going, but at least now they would play along.

As we were driving, I started saying we just needed to make some miserable memories. No! Some…

Mis-mories!!!!

We will make some good old family miserable memories. Everyone has to maintain their level of miserableness. And no one can have fun (which I knew was going to end up being a great time with us all!!)

Once we got out there and they started having fun, running ahead and exploring, and pointing out things that were cool and interesting, I reminded them not to have ANY fun. They rolled their eyes at me and agreed that now that we were out, they were, in fact, having fun and that it wasn’t all that bad!

Now, we use the term all the time! It’s sort of like a family favourite word. Any time there is adversity or someone isn’t having that much fun, we say, at least we’re making some good mis-mories! Then, we all get a chance to smile at each other and carry on!

So, next time you feel yourself wanting to complain about whatever is going on, remind yourself that it’s just another mis-mory for the books!

Thanks for coming home!