My girl is a funny kid. We make bi-weekly trips to my parent’s house (they watch her two Fridays a month) and when we arrive she basically denies loving the books and music she enjoys at home. It is as if she morphs into a slightly different child with different interests and new favorite things.
Before we discovered this, we would often bring her newest favorite stuffed animal or the CD she just can’t stop listening to over her grandparent’s house. We thought she would be excited to share these passions with her grandparents. Nope. She would have nothing to do with the “at-home” treasures while away from our house. When we would retrieve her the following evening, we would learn that she wanted no part of that cuddly friend or those songs. How strange!
I have gotten used to this habit of hers and no longer bother to pack anything from home, save for clothes. But as she has gotten older, I have begun to consider the reverse of this situation. She has certain things that she loves to do at school and at Mom moms that she does not do at home. There are books, games, puzzles and movies that she enjoys immensely while spending time away from the friendly confines of home and I have been thinking about whether or not I should seek out those goodies and add them to our routine here.
But at the same time, a large part of me wants to keep those things out of the house and allow them to remain specific, and special, to those out-of-house destinations.
Should I intentionally keep those little traditions, for lack of a better word, unique to the particular person with whom, or place where, she enjoys them now? Will it become a diluted experience if the puzzle of the United States that she loves to work on at Mom moms, for example, is also sitting in her bedroom at home every day?
What are your thoughts on locking out special treats and fun traditions, thus allowing them to stay exclusive to the places and people who introduced them first and continue to facilitate the fun times?