Suddenly my 20 month old has learned a new word…SURE! Whether I ask her if she wants some juice or to promote world peace, she answers the same every time! The irony in it all is that suddenly I realized that my toddler could teach me an important life lesson.
As we go about our day, our kids have many requests. They ask for juice, snacks, candy (oh the joy of that), to go to Disneyland (they ask for that at least once a day, right?), to play, to read a book and on and on and on and on. Many of the things my kids ask for are not outlandish requests, as a matter of fact, being only 2 hours away from Disneyland I think that request deserves an occasional sure!
But as mothers, we have obligations beyond tiny requests (like finding the Best Flat Irons …hello?), such as our homes, our husbands, careers, family, friends, charity and I could keep going, but what’s the point. It’s hard to say sure all the time and I find myself saying sure less and less and less, until one day I realized that I wasn’t saying sure to any of their requests. I was so focused on what I needed to get done, that I forgot my biggest job of all: Raising good human beings that WILL promote world peace, even long after I have left this beautiful world. In that moment, I realized that sure has been taken over by no, no and no….I sobbed.
Since the moment my first daughter was born, I made a promise to myself that I wasn’t going to screw this up…you know this mothering thing, and suddenly I found myself beginning to walk the path of screw-upville. I’ve screwed up plenty of times in my life, far too many to count but when you have two little set of eyes staring up at you, looking to you for guidance and all of life’s answers, there’s suddenly a NO screw-up clause that comes into play.
The good news: My mommy fog of indefinite NO’s has now become indefinite sure’s! My days are filled with multiple requests, that has not changed, but when my girls ask repeatedly to read a book, I sit down and get real familiar with Dora and when they want to go to the beach, I jump on the computer and find a hotel, when they want to go outside in the 109 deg. weather my only answer is simple: SURE! SURE! SURE!
My children are beautiful, smart, capable, amazing little humans and it’s easy to get lost in the simple mundane tasks of everyday life (like surfing the web for Hair Straighteners..duh!), but I have a new mantra thanks to a tiny little person with hands that are smaller than the lemon sitting in my kitchen bowl, a little person who has less hair than has collected in my hair brush the past year and a little person who has more insight than everyone I know put together! She will promote world peace, I have no doubt and she has taught me an invaluable life lesson……SURE!