Family Memories Are Priceless

When I read Jennifer Kolari’s blog post about choosing to say “yes” with her kids, it resonated hugely with me. I related to her post because like so many other parents I felt; a) That I was always being asked questions that required a yes or no answer and; b) I felt I was constantly saying “no” - the “yes” responses were few and far between. 

Granted, some of the questions were ridiculous, (My kids did NOT need to get a blue lobster for a pet) but sometimes the question was pretty simple and I said “no” simply because I was too tired and didn’t have the energy to even think about whatever it was the kids were asking for.

I've really made a conscious effort since reading Jennifer’s post and tried to think about what I was saying no to and ask myself if I could just say “yes”. Simply put, it’s been a change for the better. My family has had more time together, enjoyed more things together, and more importantly, we’ve made memories that our family will hang on to forever.

This past weekend there were a lot of questions from my kids – A LOT - and I said yes to almost all of them. I found myself agreeing to a movie night, staying up late, having jellybeans with dinner and going swimming.

So on Sunday evening I was a little bit surprised when my kids came up to me as I was making dinner and started off by saying “Daddy says it's okay with him if it's okay with you…”

Seriously.  My resourceful kids were attempting to squeeze just ONE more fun thing into this jam-packed weekend. And they cleverly used the “ask Daddy first” trick because they know it usually works. Daddy’s all about having fun, you know…

Taking a deep breath in as I stirred the dinner on the stove, I waited to hear the rest of their plea.

Go-karting. They wanted to go Go-karting.

My brain instantly filled up with reasons why I should have said “no” to this latest request. 

- It’s been a FULL weekend.
- I’m cooking dinner.
- I have 3 loads of laundry to do.
- I’m sure the kids still have homework.
- Isn’t it bedtime?!

Then I pushed the “no” reasons quietly to one side, and tried to think of the reasons to say “yes”.

- Daddy already said it was okay.
- The Go-kart track is only 10 minutes from our house.
- It’s only a 5 minute ride and it’s A LOT of fun.
- We can stop at Starbucks on the way home.

Clearly the “yes” side was going to win this. I said yes. We wolfed down dinner and headed for the Go-kart track.

It was an insane amount of fun! We were the last group to race – just made it just at the tail end of the day before the track was about to close. And I have no shame in admitting that I came in dead last in the race, because I take my driving very seriously… even when driving something with less power than our lawn mower. I stayed in my lane and made the appropriate manual hand signals.

Daddy may be all about having fun, but I’ll at least set a good example with my mad manual hand signal skills.

The important thing is that, the time that it took to go to the Go-kart track and drive like mad for 5 minutes made a huge memory in our kids’ minds that is going to stay with them until they have kids of their own. They're going to remember that weekend and smile with happy memories. They’re going to remember that Sunday night when they asked just one more question and pushed the envelope just that little bit further, fully expecting that we would probably turn them down but instead we said “Yes”. 

Our family made a memory and that's priceless. It’s an amazing feeling when you make your kids happy by doing something small and simple. One small word. Yes.  

It's worth it.