Friday, October 18, 2013

A Good Choice



We are having the kind of weather that begs you to stay outside, to put off dinner prep and enjoy the slanted autumn light.  To take a longer walk in the morning because the sky is a bluebird and the trees are jewels.

On Thursday afternoons we do school carpool.  We have guitar lessons and football practice.  It is a zig zag day with quick turnarounds and lots of time in the van.  I kind of dread it all week.  But we usually stop at Puck's for a donut somewhere in the shuffle and that makes it less bad.
Yesterday morning I tried to come up with a respectable excuse to miss guitar; it was so pretty outside - I couldn't stomach an afternoon in the car.  After going round and round with phony excuses, I finally sent Henry's teacher this very text:

Eric, this afternoon I am going to keep the kids home and we are going to lay in the sunshine and play in the yard.  We've been running around too much lately.  We'll miss Henry's lesson.  Happily, I have already paid you for it so I feel less guilty and hopefully you won't be too upset with me :)  We'll see you next week!

Thirty seconds later he texted me back:

I think that's a great idea!  See you next week. 

I loved him so much for that response.

I snapped a few pics (then put my phone inside) 'cause one day I'm going to tell the kids about the afternoon we skipped guitar and laid under the maple tree and stared at the blue sky.  And played toilet tag on the tramp.  And rubbed autumn leaves with naked crayons.  And spied the huge harvest moon making its debut in the western sky.




3 comments:

  1. You are a wise mother. I'm so glad you chose to spend the afternoon outside with your babies :)

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  2. Em, you are a magical mom. I love that you did this, I love how you handled it, and I'm sure that guitar teacher was pleased as punch about the free money you gave him! ;) Why aren't we neighbors?

    Nat

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