On Friday, the boys and I usually clean house after our busy school week. So, we worked and worked for the whole morning, sweeping, vaccuuming, dusting, cleaning bathrooms and picking up 342 toys. Then we had some lunch, finished more cleaning chores, and did lunch dishes. And THEN Justus came up to me with a little pie pan that he had found asking if he could PLEASE make a pie because he REALLY NEEDED one. (sigh)
I started to say “no” because everything was now fairly clean and I REALLY didn’t want to do one more thing, much less a messy thing. But, he’s my little chef and has been loving the kitchen with me lately. And he REALLY NEEDED a pie. (sigh)
So, I sent the other three boys upstairs to play (which they did happily since they had been working all morning). Justus and I whipped up a little pie crust, then he poured in some frozen blueberries and unprocessed sugar. We put on the top crust and he learned how to pinch the crusts together and shape them (sort of). I then carved a “J” on the top crust so the pie wouldn’t explode ( I did NOT need that!), which of course he thought was great (the “J”, not the thought of the pie exploding, although he probably would have thought that was cool too).
We baked it up, and I have to say, that after our hard working morning, it was nice to smell his delicious pie baking.
I realized then, that while it’s so much easier to say no when our kids ask us to do special things with them ( and I will still say no sometimes, because I can’t just make every pie that NEEDS to be made around here), it really only took about 10 minutes of my time to help Justus make a pie. He couldn’t have been more thrilled to spend those 10 minutes with me, doing such a fun and special project. And guess what? I had fun too.
I think I’ll try to say yes a little more often.
Here’s my cutie pie holding his blueberry pie!
Sarah says
I’m glad I decided to go back and read through your older post. This is a great reminder.