Our First Mother-Daughter Date Night: Making Magic in the Little Moments

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A quick little side note: If you’re new around here, you’ll see me refer to my daughter as “W.” It’s just a little way to protect her privacy while still sharing some of our family life here on the blog. 🤍

Hi friend,

My husband went on an overnight work trip this week and I took that as an opportunity to create the first (of many!) special mother-daughter date nights. We both had a ball, and it left me already looking forward to the next opportunity to plan something special for the two of us.

Being in charge of someone’s childhood experiences and memories can feel daunting at times, but I think it’s one of the most amazing parts of being a parent. Getting the chance to be a magic maker is the coolest thing.

While I planned an evening that included a lot of W’s personal favorite things, you can still take the layout of our plans and make it your own with your kiddos.

Starting With a Little Surprise

Overall, this experience was a girls night, but I set the exciting tone for the day earlier on by introducing a new toy. Amazon pulled through with their quick delivery of a mini Dyson vacuum that is a perfect mini version of ours! She loves poking at the buttons on our vacuum and has gotten a kick out of “cleaning” lately, so I figured it was a good choice.

I didn’t look very closely at the toy before ordering – basically just saw that yup, it makes noise and has fun beads that blow around. Perfect! Sounds good to me. It turned out to be way more elaborate and lifelike than I had imagined! She has all the same buttons to push as our actual vacuum does, there are multiple attachments that she can swap out, and the dust bin lid “opens” too.

She spent the afternoon figuring out her new toy and making our house ✨sparkling✨ clean.

Trying Something New: Matching Pedicures

I had been dying to paint her toenails! Cutesy-colored little piggy toes are one of the cutest things I’ve ever seen. Every time I would start looking into good nail polish for toddlers though, I would get sidetracked by something else. Last week, I finally sat down and searched for one that would a.) dry quickly and b.) not have a bunch of garbage in it. I discovered Piggy Paint Nail Polish and immediately snatched up a few bottles.

The actual process of painting her toes actually went a lot smoother than I expected it to, thank God. She was entranced in what I was doing and stayed pretty still the whole time. After I finished hers, I painted my toes the same color and she spent the entire rest of the day (and the next, and the next…) pointing out that we have matching pink toenails. I’ll soak in the days of her loving to match with mom for as long as I possibly can!

A Tried and True Favorite: Baking Together

After we did something exciting and new, it was time for an old favorite: baking muffins. We make these easy two-ingredient pumpkin muffins all. the. time. We almost always have the ingredients on hand, they’re quick to whip up, and W loves eating them just about as much as she enjoys helping make them.

She helped me by putting the cupcake liners in the muffin tin, stirring the ingredients together, directing where to put the next scoop of batter, and sneaking mini chocolate chips as we worked. We also had to turn on the oven light a couple times while they baked to make sure nothing was going awry.

As I said, this is an activity that we do often, but I attempted to make this time unique by ordering aprons (& hers came with an adorable chef’s hat too!) for us to wear while we baked. This was my first fail of the evening. 😂 Not only was her apron way too big, but she also immediately started shaking her head “no” when I went to go put the ensemble on her. She continued with the enthusiastic head shaking until I finally gave up and took the apron and hat off. She wanted nothing to do with them – oh well! We ditched the apron idea and just had fun doing what we always enjoy doing instead.

Our Not So Successful Pizza Night

For the most part, I try to have healthier options for W to eat, so I figured we were due for a night to indulge ourselves. Pizza had been hit or miss in the past, but the last time we ordered, she devoured some Hawaiian pizza, so I figured we had cracked the code.

I put in an order for delivery and…utter fail. She wanted absolutely nothing to do with the food. The dogs ate more from her plate than she did, because she was kind enough to share with them. 🫠 I just rolled with it, and enjoyed my slice while she enjoyed her own non-pizza dinner.

Ending the Night With a Movie

We do very minimal screen time in our house – so this was another indulgent experience for W. I went into this with very low expectations, because I wasn’t sure how long a movie would actually hold her attention. I chose Moana because she absolutely adores the music from her Toniebox and could actually recognize the characters from her stuffed animals and pajamas.

She lasted a lot longer than I expected! She lasted about twenty minutes until she got up and did some walking around to get wiggles out, but she stayed invested in the movie until the very end. We did skip past the scary parts, so that cut out a good chunk of time which I’m sure helped (heads up for parents: Te Kā makes an appearance right away at the beginning & during the final battle scene, Tamatoa and the monster realm was another skipped part, and The Kakamora could be another skipped scene although we did fine with that one).

My husband and I both don’t watch a ton of television – we just stay occupied with other things – but I do really enjoy a good movie night, so I can’t wait for more of these in our future!

Making a Little Everyday Magic

Some things that I planned were a hit and some things were a miss, but that’s just something you have to learn to take in stride as a toddler parent. These tiny humans can have some big stubborn feelings in their little bodies. Take the feedback, pivot, and make it work with a little adjustment to your plans.

This really wasn’t an elaborate setup by any means. It doesn’t take much to be intentional and make what could be a boring, lowkey movie night into something that feels a little more magical. Just a couple fun little additions can turn a normal night into a memorable one.

If getting to create nights like this is part of being the designated magic maker, I think I have the coolest job out there. 🤍