4. Be Spontaneous

We’ve watched The Cat in the Hat about a hundred zillion times since we DVR’d it a few months ago.  The kids love it.  And, to be honest, neither Gary nor I hate it, so that’s a good thing.

I relate a lot to Sally in the movie, especially her list-making tendencies.  I love lists.  Lists make me happy.  Sally liked lists, too, and the movie started out with Sally making her to do list for the day.  I thought it was hilarious, especially item number 4 on her list:  Be Spontaneous.

I’m sure there are a lot of words that people would use to describe me, but spontaneous is not one of them.  I don’t do spontaneous well.  I don’t do a change in my plans well.  And that’s not good.  Flexibility is a good thing, and I’ve been working on it.  So this past weekend, when Gary was working on our sprinklers right after we had our watermelon snack, a lot of things went through my head when the kids asked to run in the “sprinkles.”

Things like “oh my God they’re in their good clothes” and “well they are really sticky” to “they will be a muddy mess when this is over” but “that would be crazy fun for a kid.”  I looked at Rosemary, and there was something about the look in her eyes that made me think about my pledge to be more flexible and more spontaneous – and I said yes. 

They had SO MUCH FUN.  It was so much fun to watch them.  In an uncharacteristic move, I was so into watching them play that I forgot to take pictures.  I remembered soon enough and ran inside for my camera. 

Penelope didn’t love the “sprinkles” – she spent the first little bit in the playhouse, hunkered down and waiting, then finally made a break for it, still grasping her watermelon.

It wasn’t much of a surprise that a few minutes later Rosemary started asking to take off her shirt because it’s wet.

Being spontaneous paid off.  The kids had an amazing time, and the clean up was negligible.  The clothes were only wet, which they were going to be anyway when I threw the into the washer that night.  The best part was that I felt like a cool mom, and I feel as though I’m conquering my scheduling obsession and learning when to let the lists go a little.

All those “sprinkles” must have really worn them out and made them hungry, because that night we had tacos for dinner and our family of six went through TWENTY-TWO tacos.  I only had two.  Gary can’t remember how many he had, but it was four or five.  Rosemary had FIVE tacos.  These weren’t skimpy tacos either.  They were stuffed and overflowing with taco meat, salsa, cheese, lettuce, tomatoes, and sour cream.  I made 2 pounds of taco meat with intentions of having leftovers but barely had any left.  We went through almost an entire 16 ounce container of sour cream.  Insane.  What is going to happen when these kids are teenagers?  I know that we have three girls and only one boy, but I had quite the appetite as a teenager.  My mom still talks about how much food I used to eat, so I can only expect our girls may be the same.  Just last year we had to get another refrigerator so that we could have enough room to store food to last an entire week.  How many refrigerators are we going to need in 10 years?!!  Oh well.  That’s probably the least of our worries!

Happy Friday, everyone.