It occurs to me that my children are going to grow up to hate surprises.
It will be my fault.
If there is one thing I do well, it's overcompensate. All of those things that weren't the best when I was a kid are the things that I do to excess now. SURPRISE! I LOVE SURPRISES!
Everybody who was in a position to surprise me when I was a kid failed miserably. There were no surprise vacations, no surprise presents, just no surprises. I mean, I suppose there were, but they were more of the SURPRISE! The clothes that you picked out for back to school won't be coming home because we can't pay for them! Or SURPRISE! Your mom walked into the middle of the road during rush hour because depression is a terrible beast!
Those are not fun surprises. I like sparkly things MUCH better.
Now that I'm in charge of the surprises, I like to turn everything into a surprise. I tell Alexis that she's spending the night at a friend's house about ten minutes before we leave to drop her off. I forever refuse to tell her which friends will be joining us for fun because SURPRISE! I even keep trips out of town a complete surprise until there is no choice.
Case in point, Alexis didn't know we were going to Virginia Beach last summer until we were basically there.
Alexis has started to complain that she hates surprises. It's just this side of hilarious, in part because I realize it's not totally my fault. A lot of it is my fault, sure, but at the end of the day, she's the kind of person who wants spreadsheets that help her organize her spreadsheets. She's a planner is what I'm saying. Surprises and planners don't mix, so why not screw her up extra by throwing surprises at her all of the time?
It's fun.
For me.
I'm cooking up a new surprise at this very second. I'm headed to BlogHer next week and this time Alexis gets to go with me.
Just don't tell her. I'd rather wait until we're standing in New York.
