When it pays to stick to your guns

ME:  "Let's go do X today."

KIDS:  "Noooo, we don't want to do X, even though we have no idea what X is.  We'd rather stay home and do Y like always."

ME:  "But we can do Y any day.  X is only happening today.  Let's go do X."

KIDS:  <Whine.  Drag feet.  Mope.  Howl.  Grumble.  Bleat.>**

ME:  "Besides, X will be fun and educational.  Trying new things builds—"

KIDS:  "No, Dad, don't say that word!"

ME:  "—character.  Now get dressed, we're going."

KIDS:  <see **>

We go do X.  The kids have a fabulous time and even ask me if we could please stay a bit longer.  Of course, they have forgotten our conversation and neglect to thank their prudent father for overruling their prejudiced and groundless opposition to X earlier that morning.  I don't mind, though.  The smiles on their faces, the knowledge that I have given them a unique, enlightening experience, my relief that X was a success when it could very well have flopped (and there have been some flops), are gratifying enough.

By now this pattern is so familiar that I can encode it with variables.  X has been concerts, hikes, street carnivals and day camps.  Today, though, it was a recorder competition played by youth ensembles from around Salzburg.  One group performed a fabulous 5-recorder arrangement of The Bare Necessities.  One 4th grade boy as part of his act played two recorders at once, one in each hand.  He wore a Transformers t-shirt to match, perhaps to underscore his virtuosity in baroque music.  

Vanessa, our budding recorder enthusiast, stayed for the last few acts while I led a tiring Bettina out to the lobby to read her some books we'd brought along "just in case".  This unplanned solo act itself drew a crowd of eager pre-school-aged listeners who were in the lobby for the same reason we were.  I hadn't meant to start a reading circle, but I rode the tide and read to the whole group, drawing as many smiles from their parents as from them.  See, aren't I glad I did X?