letting loose for a day

As discussed here once, being a mom is a job.  and let's just get it out there and say that it is not always fun.  in fact, when you think of your mom, do you think, "fun?"  (not that you aren't fun mother, i am just making a point.)

Mothering involves teaching and training, protecting and guiding.  If we don't turn off the tv, who will?  If we don't enforce some table manners and healthy eating habits, how will they learn them?  We are responsible for ensuring our children are dressed for school, keeping them safe, making meals, monitoring hygiene, and teaching right and wrong....these are decidedly UN-FUN tasks.  at least to me.

It is the grandparents and the maggies who get to take your kids out for ice cream on wednesdays.  It is the daddies who get to wrestle in the evenings and have the iphones with the cool doodle apps.  most moms i know have boring phones.  Even these fellow mom friends are more fun than you, because their homes have cooler toys and they always make their kids share their toys with your kids.    

Even in song, it is the "mamas" who are telling their kids "not to take their guns to town," "and not to grow up to be cowboys."  We are important, but not really fun, and to be honest, i am tired of it.

So today, (actually last friday - i am a bit late in editing) i am instituting the first of what I hope to be a quarterly, if not more frequent, "spoil your kids day"  or "mama says: YES day" or it could be called "mama's not a kermudgen today day."  i am not sure of the title yet.  But I know what I want to convey.  That mama loves her boys and understands just what makes them tick.  I want them to know that I want to have fun with them, too.  and that "NO" is actually not my favorite word.


So on Friday, frank got to eat valentines candy at breakfast.  they got little toys at target.  frank got to eat all the chocolate chips out of the trail mix without being stopped.  we played outside longer than was sensible, and ate a yummy dinner with daddy by candlelight.  perhaps it was not the healthiest of days, but we had fun together.  I know it is not my role to be their best friend, but who doesn't want to let loose and have fun with these guys sometimes: