We try to plan them. Especially as parents, we take kids on vacation. We plan special outings. They often fall flat in the fun department. Our expectations set so high, that they SHOULD be happy, grateful, and enjoy themselves. They are kids. As in…they’re crazy, wonderful, unpredictable, wild creatures. They’re not robots. They don’t hold in how they feel and play along like adults do. If they’re not happy, they’ll just have an epic meltdown on the floor of wherever, whenever, no matter who is there.

We have also planned movie night, game night, and ya know…family night type stuff which ends up in tears, yelling, and someone is not happy. Maybe there are those families that are “normal,” but if my kids want a perfect home and family, they can go sit on the coaches in Pier 1 Imports and watch the Disney channel on their phones and ipods. I will one day have a home that looks like that when no kids live here. And I will have a pretty sparkly, luxe home, and I’ll be sad. I’ll wish back for marker marks, stepping on Legos, and he chaos/love tornado of our dailyness. Okay, I will not miss stepping on Legos, because that is pain.

I will miss the real Epic Moments Of Awesomeness unplanned that just happen in ordinary extraordinary life. Like we had a possum the other night at our front door. We live at the shore. I love nature, but I am not a woodsy gal. I’d be glamping versus camping, in a cabin, with wifi and wine. I’ve never fended off wild animals except for my kids and the ninja moves I can generate when I walk through a spider web at night. When I lived of shore, I dealt with that frequently and even had to call my neighbor to get a spider out of my house that was so big it looked like a Halloween decoration.

I wish I had a video of my two older kids, my husband, and I trying to get this possum down the steps so my husband could come up them. Hubby was freaking out it was going to hiss and bite him. He was throwing pebbles not to hurt the little guy, but to scare him so he’d leave. My son was tossing Legos out the window as he is hanging out the window. My husband wanted us to throw water near the animal. My daughter went all PETA and was afraid the animal would get cold. I was yelling at my husband to just catch the umbrella I was trying to throw him and just come upstairs. I wasn’t scared of the lil’ dude. I finally just threw the umbrella. Where was the possum going to go? We were at the door at the top of the steps. My hubby was at the bottom. My husband opened up the umbrella and used it like a shield. We had many laughs over this. It was a memory we couldn’t have planned.

You have to embrace the Epic Moments Of Awesomeness however they appear. These are how memories are made.  In the unplanned gems we have to tell great stories about.