why do we say no?

I don't have any photos today, but picture this in your mind:

You are at the park with the kids. It is an overcast morning, and everyone has been playing comfortably so far. Swinging, sliding, drawing with chalk, riding scooters, etc. But the sun starts to come out a bit, and add a few running races across a field into the mix and you have some hot kids on your hands.

What do you do when they start begging to get in the lake, even though you did not bring bathing suits or towels? They plead to "just get our feet wet", but you know that is not very realistic. What kid can do that?

You take a look around at what you have in the vehicle. A picnic blanket made from polyester leisure suit fabric = water resistant van seat cover. Stack of old bed sheets = drying off and wrapping up material. Oh yeah, and the bag of beach toys is in the back too. You're set!

Now, that doesn't really sound so difficult, does it? So then why are we so programmed to say NO? We don't have bathing suits, we don't have towels, we weren't planning to swim today... those are the only things I could think of when I was considering the situation. And none of those reasons could really stand up to much argument, other than that classic parental cop-out: "Because I am the mom and I say NO".

So the kids all got drenched, had a blast, and I had to promise to bring them back to the lake again on Wednesday in order to get them out! I was covered in sand and fairly wet myself from picking up Lyle, nursing him, etc. But they are just clothes and they can be washed! It was a really nice morning and everyone got along so well and had so much fun, I am really glad I didn't say No.

And there was a bonus too: we saw the coolest set of blue heron footprints in the sand, under the shallow water on the beach. We've never been to the beach when it was pretty much undisturbed, so that was a very cool discovery. As I've always said, that is one of the best parts about learning at home- getting to be out in the world during the weekdays when nobody else is out.

The next time you are about to say "No" to your kids, ask yourself WHY. You might not have a very good reason at all, and you might miss out on a really great opportunity to have fun with them. SAY YES!!