Sometimes "I love you" means saying No.
Other times it means saying Yes...a lot...all day long, even.
I had misplaced something, and I absent-mindedly promised that if Guy found it for me, I'd give him....uh...anything, whatever he wanted. (I was doing something else at the time and couldn't think of something specific.) "Anything?" he said, "You won't say No to anything I ask?!!"
Sure, sure, yeah, just go find it.
"Ok, Mommy, I will share my candy with you..."
Well a day later, he did find that thing I was looking for...and, of course I had to pay up.
So, yesterday I said YES to Guy all day...no matter what he wanted.
Granted, I'm a pretty laid back Mommy. I generally allow my kids to play in the yard like free-range chickens, and if they want to "create", I give them lots of tape and whatever materials they would like to invent with. I even allowed my son to build a Guy-sized spider web on our swing set last week using duct tape. But I still find myself saying "no" a lot, which is annoying, even to me. So yesterday was a nice little break from "no, no, no!"
At Guy's request, we watched a marathon of cartoons on Boomerang on Cartoon Network. We ate chips and blueberries for lunch. He cut down the spiderweb himself, using scissors. He sorted through our 4th of July parade supplies box, which he's been begging me to do...just to make sure we had enough "fun stuff", and for dinner, we ate a ton of homemade french fries, which Guy helped to make and a little bit of cold-cut sandwiches with pickles. So, this is how he chose to spend his no-free day: watching cartoons and playing with sharp objects.
How would you spend your day if there was no "saying no"?
interesting question...I think it's easier to answer as a child than a very mature read older adult. lol!
ReplyDeleteI love that! I think my kids would want to spend it in the kitchen making cookies and then going all over town doing fun stuff they wanted to do!
ReplyDeleteThe other day I decided to let each child pick out the menu for the whole day...well, that plan backfired on me!
ReplyDeleteMy oldest son chose these items:
B: Eggs, waffles, cinnamon toast, muffins with butter.
L: sandwich, mac n cheese, chicken casserole, steak, ribs, hotdogs, smashed potatoes, brown rice, white rice, and potatoes smashed, (yes, twice). The bacon wrapped beef things.
D: chicken
Oh my!
If no one said no, I would hire someone to take down the wallpaper, refloor the bathrooms, AND paint.
ReplyDeleteFor me personally, I think I would bake bread and eat it.
But Lin is right...as an adult, we look at NOs and YESes differently. But it's a question I'm going to think on. thanx for asking
You know, I was just thinking yesterday that I need to say yes more. With my kids, my first instinct is to say, "NO" to most of the stuff they ask. Well, not always flat out no, but "Maybe later" gets used a lot. I am trying to work on this and say "Yes" much more.
ReplyDeleteFor my oldest we'd be spending the day at the pool, having strawberries and blueberries all day and watching princess movies at night.
ReplyDeleteFor my middle daughter we'd be hunting bugs, digging in the dirt, roller skating and eating watermelon and BBQ.
I also wanted to let you know I left you something on my blog.