Tiny Traditions – Big Payoff

Funny how tiny traditions come about.  This morning I was getting ready to fill in for a sick wife and take the youngest to school.  As we were gathering stuff up, I offered to take her to breakfast if we could get out of the house quick enough.  I then remembered where we like to go for our breakfast together.  Subway!

This came  about probably a year ago.  My wife usually takes her to school so it’s rare that I get the honor.  Well, this one morning I decided to surprise her and take her to breakfast before school.  You know, something more exciting than your typical bowl of cereal as you fly out the door.  So, we stopped at Subway since we’ve always enjoyed eating there and it was close to the school.  I’m pretty anal about getting to places on time so I wanted to make sure we were covered by being in close proximity to the final destination.  We’ve had the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich before, but that day she decided it needed something extra.  As we were finalizing the details of the sandwich she thought that a dash of salt and pepper would do the trick.  When we sat down and bit into it, she was right!  The salt and pepper added just enough oomph to it.  We have done this morning run multiple times since.

Fast forward to this morning.  As soon as I said we could get breakfast, she was all in.  Then I dropped the Subway word and her eyes lit up.  We both said ‘Bacon, egg, and cheese’ and knew we were on the same wavelength.  We hit the Subway, got our sandwich made to our liking (with the S&P of course), sat down, and had a great breakfast together before school.

This is just one example of even the most silly thing becoming something special for you and your child.  Continue to find those silly things that can be repeated, embraced, and remembered for years.  When you are 80 and she’s 50, you’ll be able to ask her if she wants to go to breakfast…then burst out together ‘Bacon, egg, and cheese!’