A Splash in Reality

I took a dip in a stream today. It was totally unplanned, and I was totally unprepared. Scott and I took the kids to Dinosaur Valley State Park today. I packed extra clothes for the kids. Ella insisted that she wanted to take her rain boots instead of her crocs. Then she begged and begged and begged to get in the stream. Being practical minded adults, we kept telling her no because the water would come over the top of her boots. Finally, I relented and said I would help her across a shallow part. Well, it got deeper than her boots. I picked her up to help her across the deep part and as you can imagine DOWN we went! I was very irritated. I was irritated with myself for not having clothes for me. I was irritated with Ella for insisting she needed to wear her boots. Then I was again irritated with myself for not insisting she bring her crocs. I was irritated at Scott that he had gone ahead with Brenna, and he wasn't there to help. We got to the car and reality came crashing down on my heart.

I was so busy being a practical minded adult, that I forgot to let my kids simply be kids. I forgot to laugh at the fact that we were soaking wet in a stream in front of an entire cub scout troop. I forgot that since we were already wet, it was the perfect chance to splash around and get even wetter.

I burst into tears when I got to the car at how badly I had handled such a simple situation. After a heartfelt talk, Scott and I have decided that we are going to take outings and focus on FUN. We started out our day with the wrong focus. The focus was simply to fill our day--not to have fun. We are going to try to do a better job of embracing the childhood that our children should have. We are going to join our children in their fun. We are going to be parents that they remember fondly because we have fun with them. Sometimes, I guess it takes a splash of reality to point out the weaknesses in your life.