Schooled by Burger King

Background:  Two of our children go to public school. Our other two stay home with me. One, I homeschool. Our other child is three. We haven’t deeply considered his formal education yet (which is highly unusual and suspicious where we live). Also, I have stronger feelings than most about nutrition.

Source

One morning a couple weeks ago, I woke up at 8:15, disoriented.  I immediately called Matt to see what was wrong. While he does take all four children on the school drop off routine each morning, he’s usually home before 8.

Matt answered his phone, sounding chipper. “I’m at Burger King, eating breakfast with the kids. We’ll be home in about 45 minutes.”

I burst into tears and mumbled goodbye.

When Matt came home, he approached me warily, as if we’d just met and he was trying not to completely blow it.

“Thank you!” I exuded.

“Whew! I couldn't tell on the phone if those were happy tears or if you were upset that I was feeding the kids fast food,” he said, obviously relieved.

“I was so happy! I couldn’t imagine a better gift. Thank you!” [Again, I said this blubbering and barely understandable.]

The honest truth is that, years ago, I WOULD have cried because my husband had made the poor (and, possibly, unforgivable) decision to feed our children fast food. Sadly, at the time, I was more concerned about meeting my parenting ideals than I was about recognizing and accepting Matt’s gift. When I look back on it, he has rarely (if ever) given the kids fast food out of convenience for himself.

When he takes the kids out to eat spontaneously, he’s trying to help me, and he’s doing it to say, “Thank you.” “I love you.” “I appreciate you.” “I couldn’t do what you do.”

He takes the children out because he wishes he could give me a week away at a spa (or at a nice hotel with a huge library- which would be far better than a spa for me). That gift is highly impractical for a variety of reasons in our family, so he does what he CAN do and I’m finally learning to appreciate it.

I’m trying to embrace a new-for-me concept:  

Lowering the Bar (a lot)

+

Gratitude (a lot)

=

Healthier, Happier Me

With me healthier and happier, our entire family is more relaxed.

The truth is, our family has complex needs* and we cannot handle any non-essential stress. [tweet this] Me unnecessarily adding stress weakens us. Even though I still do not personally think Burger King sausage patties are a healthy way to start the morning, I'll admit, our children are healthier consuming those sausage patties than they are being consumed by my heightened stress level.

However, those sausage patties did lead to intestinal problems that were not exactly calming.

I am thankful for learning an important lesson from Burger King, but, in an effort to give me a peaceful morning not followed by an afternoon and evening of sick children, Matt will likely be patronizing a local diner the next time he wants to surprise me with a quiet morning to myself.

*Our family's complex needs began with adoption. However, the honest truth is adoption quickly exposed our individual weaknesses and THAT is where most of the complexity comes in.

This post was originally published March 1, 2016