Just Because

Today I spontaneously took my daughter to the park. We’ve been struggling to find some kind of routine in our lives besides napping and laundry for the past few weeks. I’ve been focusing on increasing my exercise, especially since I weaned my son. (Apparently my body finds breastfeeding to be an important calorie burner, without which weight mysterious finds its way back onto my body). Mondays are always a little hard for me emotionally, especially after a busy weekend. My husband is back to work and I’m usually left with a messy house and loads of undone laundry. Today was no exception. We also had a 5:30 wake up call for our very unhappy son, which led to me getting up at 6 to feed him breakfast and our daughter getting up at 6:30. I managed to squeeze in my morning Wii Fit exercise (rhythm boxing and steps aerobics in case you were wondering) and get everyone breakfast, including me. We were scheduled to attend story time at the library at 10:30, so I took a risk and squeezed in a nap for the baby. I had to wake him after an hour so that we wouldn’t be late arriving at the library (which we were anyway because of parking difficulties.) As we were driving home after story time I realized it was the nicest day I had seen in a while. So without saying anything I took a slight detour to the playground on the way home. When we pulled up, my daughter said

“Mommy, why are we here?” and I said

“It’s a nice day and I though you might like to play.” Her face lit up.

“Why?”

“Just because.”

I unstrapped her car seat and she shot across the field toward the play structure before I even got her brother out of the car. Since most kids are still off from school there were quite a few for her to play with. We stayed less than an hour (her brother was hungry and needed a second nap soon), but when it was time to go she didn’t put up much for a fuss. As we were leaving she asked me again,

“Mommy, why did you bring us here today?”

“Because I love you and I thought you’d have fun.”

“I did have fun, can we come back again soon?”

How often do I allow my own routine keep me from fun, spontaneously moments? She won’t remember if dinner was on time or if the laundry was folded and put away. But she’ll remember today.