Seared Moments

Yesterday we drug our kids around all day shopping so we could start getting our son some school clothes and some things my daughter needed. We spent way too long shopping. It was basically 3:00pm by the time we realized that we hadn’t had the late lunch/early dinner we had planned on, and once we realized it, felt extremely guilty because of the children’s hungriness. We finally took them to a restaurant for dinner where they were relatively very well behaved.
All day long, we told them that if they were good we would take them to a “kid’s club” that was way better than McDonald’s and the 24 Hour Fitness kid’s club. So it was a LITTLE bit of an exaggeration: it was the IKEA kid’s club.
Before you think we’re monster parents, though, we did promise to take them to The Family Fun Center at the end of the day if they were really good.
So we got to IKEA and the kid’s club was full- the thing they had worked so hard for! And even if they had an opening later, Kylie ended up being too small to go in at all. But after almost two hours of being drug through Swiss you-put-it-together-low-price furniture, the kids all in all were pretty dang good!
So after a LONG day of shopping, even though it was nearly 9:00pm, and way past bedtime, we took the kids to The Family Fun Center where we only had time to do one thing: Bumper Boats! Kylie was too small for them too but simply looking at all the lights made her happy.
The point is, that after a long day, seeing my son’s face as we squirted each other with water canons and spun around in bumper boats made the entire day worth while. It’s the little moments like that- the temperature of the air, the glow of the moon, the atmosphere of your surroundings, the smile on your wife’s face, the jump of your daughter, and the giggle from your son- that tend to become seared into your brain and make all of the hard days worth living through.
Take notice of these moments, take in every second, allow time to stand still, and when life gets tough, reflect on these things.