Excited for Incredibles 2? We loved it! Thanks to Clorox for sponsoring this post. You can enter Disney Pixar and Clorox’s Big City sweepstakes for a chance to win a trip to NYC and a shopping spree at the Disney Store here.
This weekend Craig and I took Kayla and Blake to Hollywood to see a screening of Incredibles 2. Having loved the original 14 years ago, seeing Incredibles 2 with this little family we’ve built was one of those small but meaningful milestones. The premise of the movie also hit home for both of us. Role reversals, fighting for your family’s survival and questioning if you’re doing any of it right.
Our friends at Clorox want you to know that parents are incredible! And we don’t have to be perfect to be incredible. Whether it’s villainous bad dreams or sneaky germs, we as parents are here to help our kids fight them off or develop the skills to do it themselves.
Sometimes what Blake needs is an extra cuddle and help finding his stuffed bunny called “my baby” at 2am. Other times it’s things he doesn’t realize he needs, like vegetables, quiet time, or his toys wiped down to keep preschool funk away.
Craig is unquestionably Mr. Incredible in our home. It’s not about brute strength or grandiose acts of heroism. It’s about a thousand subtle things. Craig is the soccer coaching, lunch packing, living room wrestling, sparkling kitchen counter cleaning hero that our family desperately needs. When Blake was born, it was Craig who spent most of his day rocking Blake while I went back to work after just three weeks off. I think that makes both of us pretty incredible.
Elastigirl is a female superhero who STRETCHES herself to help others. If that isn’t motherhood, what is? We stretch our bodies to grow tiny humans. We stretch our hearts to ensure there is always enough love to go around. We stretch our minds to remember every school event, birthday party gift, food preference and weird random dislike our families have.
We’re a team, Craig and I. Neither of us is remotely close to perfect (Craig is closer though, for the record) But by combining our strengths, we overcome our individual weaknesses. Having a handy sidekick like Clorox to help us get through the grime and laundry makes clean up a little easier so we can enjoy more time with our kids and make memories like the ones we made this weekend.
On a recent shopping trip, Blake told me he wished he could be a baby again so he could fit into an Incredibles onesie we saw since there was nothing his size on the shelves yet. Naturally, it became my mission to find Blake an Incredibles shirt and being me, one thing led to another.
I came home from the Disney Store with shirts for all and a few Incredibles toys too. We go to the movies as a family a few times a year and historically, I make a big deal about it because the little extras seem to be something Kayla and Blake remember.
We piled into El Capitan theater on Hollywood boulevard where Kayla and Blake consumed their weight in popcorn before the movie even started. Blake decided he was happiest on my lap, cuddling his plush Dash doll and Kayla wanted to be right between Craig and I holding her Jack Jack doll. We laughed a lot as a family and Craig and I shared a few knowing looks while watching Mr. Incredible and Elastigirl navigate the different stages of parenting.
Taking more small trips as a family has been a goal of ours this year. So we turned what could have been a very long day of driving and traffic from San Diego to LA and back into a more enjoyable two days and added in some time with Craig’s mother. We took it easy, gave the kids plenty of downtime to play, visited parks, swam and had water balloon fights, creating memories that we will fondly look back on one day. Its moments like these where all the housework, cleaning and laundry are worth it and you remember how incredible of a parent you really are.
If a family trip and an Incredible shopping spree of your own sounds good, then you can enter the Disney Pixar and Clorox sweepstakes to win a family trip to NYC where you’ll see the sights AND take your kids on an amazing shopping spree at the Disney Store in Times Square.