It's good to say YES!

Sometimes I find myself saying "No" so often, it feels like I'm parenting on autopilot. I say no without even thinking about things. "No you can't have that." "No you can't do that." "No you can't go there." But I've been consciously trying to say "Yes" more often. Or at least to say "Let me think about it."

One of the kids in Jared's preschool class brings a Lunchable everyday for lunch. Jared has been begging for me to buy them for him for months. I've been saying No for months. Today as we drove home from the park, he asked me again. And I almost said No. But instead, I explained to him that Lunchables were more money than I wanted to spend. But that maybe we could find a compromise.

For lunch today, instead of a turkey and cheese sandwich and a banana, Jared and I made a homemade Lunchable. We traded a piece of wheat bread for a stack of crackers. We cut the sliced turkey out with a biscuit cutter (Jared ate the scraps while we put it all together, so there wasn't even any waste!). We cut the cheese into squares. And we put it all into a plastic box instead of on a plate. We decided that our Lunchables came with a banana and chocolate milk. The whole thing took no more time than his usual lunch, and he was grinning from ear to ear the whole time. He ate every scrap. And I feel great.

I wonder what else I can say "Yes" to today.