Quality Over Quantity – #atozchallenge

I often am amazed about how something that is made out of the same ingredients can turn out so very different. You use the same quality of ingredients and the same quantity and yet it all reacts differently.

Just like the other day when I made my home made Turkish bread. I put in what I always put in and with this I actually follow a recipe. I was distracted though and only remembered to put the yeast in when the dough was kneaded already. It turned out pretty good but it was almost like a different dish.

Now this is not about my Turkish bread or any other of my dishes. This is actually about people. Little people to be precise. My two little people. It’s also about quantity and quality. And it’s about friendship.

I find it incredibly interesting to observe my two children as they go through life. In general but also in regards to their friendships. While my son was always the kind of person who felt comfortable with only a handful of people, my daughter is the typical social butterfly.

I would say that my son’s friends are in the “close friend” and in the “friends” area. One of them is his best buddy. Almost like a brother. Incredibly important to him and I’m sure that this friendship will last forever. So he is in the most inner circle. The other 3 are his friends, in the “friends” circle maybe crossing over to “close friends”. He loves hanging out with them, doing things together, just chat. You name it. His idea of the perfect birthday party is heading either out on a hike with his buddies or then going to the Wildlife Park and then have a meal together. I admit up until recently it would most likely have included playing some kind of game on some kind of device as well but we have managed to steer away from it a little bit.

Now my daughter is different. She has about 3 friends in her “close friends” circle and then it starts… Just to take the example of the birthday party: I have to cap the number of people she wants to invite for years already. And it’s always a bit of a drama because she does not just invite the girls because she feels she has to but because they are considered friends. It’s not the kind of situation where she invites most of the class and then has to invite the couple others too so it doesn’t get awkward. She truly feels she is letting her friends down if she doesn’t invite them. And we have the discussion almost every year when I set the bar in regards to the max amount of people.

What blows my mind is that you say quality over quantity in regards to friendships. In my son’s case it’s definitely the case. I find the quality of his friends incredibly high although the quantity is not really. But in regards to my daughter I often think that she has found a huge amount of friends of the same good quality. So there unfortunately the quality over quantity doesn’t really work otherwise my life in regards to being the party host would be much easier. I could just go by quality. But I can’t.

And then I wonder if it’s the law of attraction playing into it. If she is the kind of person who attracts the good people because she is such a great person. And because she is such a social person too she engages with them. She connects with them and connects them among each other. So they suddenly move in this tight knit group.

Now here is my dilemma: As much as I love this I also have her planning her birthday again. She always starts months ahead. Actually she starts planning the day after her birthday for the year to come. Something that drives my son nuts. But everyone is different, right? So she is already creating her list. And because she has made new friends again over the last couple of months they of course have to be invited too.

Now in theory our “planning” that was never really a “planning” in regards to having summer children worked pretty well. If we would have stayed in Switzerland… Or would have moved somewhere in the Northern Hemisphere. We could have then easily organized a birthday party of my daughter in a park with as many children as she wanted to invite. But here in Australia it’s of course winter when they have their birthdays. And most of the time the weather is not inviting enough to head to the park anyway.

Now I could say let’s go quantity over quality in regards to the party and just take them to the park and let them run around while we freeze our toes off. But then that’s not me either. I want it to be good too. Fun. A great day for everyone. So I guess I will just go with her suggestion of whatever theme she decides on out of the three she proposed and then host everyone at home again. We managed the last couple of years and will manage again.

And for my son… I just simply appreciate how close he is with the boys and that he is happy to do something simple and in a small group. And while I type this I wonder if the reason for this might also be in the cake… Because we all know that a cake shared among 4-5 people makes bigger slices than a cake shared between 10-15…

 

A to Z Challenge 2017