say yes to the children more often

I said yes to playing catch today. I am a lousy baseball player, and now my fingers (I kept needing to use both hands to catch, despite having a glove) and my forearm hurt. Yes to ice cream sounds so much better…! :)

I have to remember that the little unsaid yeses are just as important as the big ones. In the rare moments when we’re home, we’ve been having lots of small family times together with lots of laughter.

Only one trip to the emergency room since my last entry two years ago, and it wasn’t because of anything I had agreed to let the little one do, so maybe my judgement is pretty good after all. He’s going to have a scar for the rest of his life, but I’ve learned to ask directly about scarring.

Anyway, I said yes to a “concert” from the little one. He played every instrument from the bin of them (except, I’m just realizing, the tambourine) while I humored him by “dancing” to his noise. Fun, now that it’s just a memory without the crashing, banging, wailing soundtrack.

I’m trying to let my children learn a few things by trial and error when it’s not going to cause major bodily harm or property damage. So, over our April vacation, I’ve said yes to riding bikes down the steep sledding hill and trying to tie the trash can to a bike to drag it back to the house.

I also let them flood a patch of dirt with water, build a dam, then reflood the patch and destroy the dam. Our well can be questionable so while the dirt patch is never off-limits, the hose often is.

I let them have lollipops after their haircuts yesterday. Were they ever excited!

This was quite the no day, so I’m glad I have yes days to look back at and realize that the balance is shifting more and more to yes. At my in-laws’ home today (where everything is fragile and there’s no room for playing boys), there was cold pouring rain outside, so I kept having to rein them in (no, don’t throw the stuffed animal. No, don’t run in the living room. No, don’t climb on the couch. No, you can’t play with that. And so on.). They were good about it, so we’ll try to have as many yes things as we can tomorrow.

A yes to making ice cream today! I felt bad because it was a no for many days until we got to the grocery store last week to buy heavy cream, and then today was our first chance to actually make it. Two happy little ones tonight!

Most of my yeses this weekend probably weren’t in their best interest, seeing as our weekend revolved around junk food (or at least it seemed that way!). It didn’t make them any happier when I said no and called a halt to the potato chips and chocolate. Oh well. They’ve each got a healthy lunch packed for tomorrow’s picnic, minus the lemonade and the leftover brownie they each got.

With what feels like unlimited time, I’ve been able to say yes to lots of things so far this summer. It’s going to be my shortest summer ever (only 8 weeks and it’s already a quarter gone!), so I’m trying hard to make sure I’m not wasting their time. So far, they’ve wanted to be on the run most of the time, so we’ve been going, going, going. Taking yet another picnic lunch to yet another spot today, too!

My yes to pitching batting practice to them resulted in a line drive right to my forehead. Good thing the little one likes using a tennis ball and a plastic bat still!