Celebrating Our Family's Triumphs

This past month I have made a big commitment to start celebrating our family's triumphs. Two weeks ago, The Man had a day of major, major success. He conquered three huge efforts in one day. On a normal day just one of those events would be enough to totally stress a person out. He conquered all three in one work day. It was awesome.

So The Bug and I decided we needed to have a celebration. We planned a special family dinner, a special treat for dessert and bought Daddy a small bouquet of balloons, one which proudly said "Great Job!" We also each made a quick congratulations poster to welcome him home in celebratory style. It was so fun to make a BIG fuss when he came in the door, smothering him with hugs, kisses and cheers. He was surprised and I think it made him feel really good. He didn't need it, but sure appreciated it.

Then eight days later he had another BIG triumph. We're talking something that was years in the making. The Bug and I decided we had to have another celebration. We made posters again, bought a new balloon bouquet and planned another special dinner. We made a fuss.

That same day The Bug completed a big math goal. We realized we were doing really well helping her excel at reading but had not done quite as well at helping her with math. So we made flashcards and started running through them every day with a goal for the end of the week to be able to do all the flashcards in under two minutes. Another great family triumph to celebrate. So without her knowing I planned to do a double family celebration the night we celebrated Daddy's latest big accomplishment to include celebrating her math success along with a little gift for her.

There are lots more days that can easily and cheerily be celebrated: report cards, earning a new belt in karate, finishing a giant project, losing a tooth. There are so many fun ways to elevate the every day and create special family memories. All this fun sure has perked up our evenings and dinners around here and I think it's been great to celebrate as a family the daily successes we are always working towards.

Sometimes something bigger than a verbal "congratulations" or "good job" and pat on the back is on order. I find it often takes a few "Hooray!" cheers before people really start hearing you and are able to slow down, sit back and celebrate their own success. Without a fuss, I'm not sure my family members really understand how proud I am of them, or how great it is that they've worked so hard. It's easy for each person to just pass over their hard-earned success thinking of the weight of more to come, the next item on the To Do list or to focus too much on small failings. Making these days into celebrations seems like such a great thing to do for the heart and soul of our family.

image by kalanicut