Say something other than "No"

One of my fondest memories of childhood is kneeling on my dad’s kitchen floor alongside my closest cousin, face down into a bowl of cereal that I was eating directly with my mouth, doggy-style.

My cousin, one year older than I (and my roommate for many weeks every summer as we grew up), was a dog lover and much better at pretend play than I was. She boldly asked my stepmom if we could move our bowls from the breakfast table where we were eating like normal(ish) kids down to the floor, you know, to be dogs. “Why not?” my stepmom must have said.

And really, “Why not?”

It was so much fun for us and really didn’t impact her negatively.

I was reminded of this memory when I came across the below post from the Feeleez blog.

What if we said YES even when our gut response was NO? What if we used all of our empathetic powers to imagine what the other person was feeling? Would we say YES more often? If you really tried on the idea of what it would feel like to squish into warm, home-made play doh with your bare feet while standing on the kitchen table would you still say NO to the kid’s request? If you imagined that squishy goodness squeezing between your toes in a delightful, cozy, embrace would you still say NO?
Probably not.

Thus, my son wore protective eye goggles to preschool this morning. I mean, why not?

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Whitney

RookieMoms.com co-founder Whitney lives with her husband, son, and daughter in the San Francisco Bay Area where she writes about parenting, crafts, and activities that moms can do with babies in tow. She and Heather also publish 510Families.com, a site for East Bay parents.