What To Do?

I wanted to take the kids to the movies the other day to see Kung Fu Panda 2. But the timing didn’t work out to go to the early show, which is the only one I’m willing to pay for, and I'm only willing to pay that price because it’s 3D. So we skipped that and I thought we’d go to the dollar show, which costs more than a dollar now. It’s a dollar fifty or two dollars, I’m not sure. But the only movie showing that was kid friendly was one my oldest daughter had already seen with a friend, so that was a no.

As for me, I have been entrenched in deep study. I’m preparing some stuff for church that is labor intensive and it’s eating my days alive, so I just wanted to get out and breathe a little. But it was soooo hot outside, in the high nineties, which meant we had to go somewhere indoors. I was getting tired of trying to figure out what to do. It was too late for the zoo and that kind of thing.

Spur of the moment adventures are hard to muster up with a big family.

So this is where I made my mistake. I said, “How about we go walk around the mall, not to buy stuff, but just to look around. Maybe we can get an ice cream or something!” Which sounds great on paper, but in real life it’s a fantasy. My four fems don’t do the “look but not buy.” At least not very well. And they always have a good reason to buy whatever they want to buy. Clothes for summer. Things they really need. And they probably do. Money is tight around here and we’ve been cutting back a lot.

But, see, if I hadn’t taken us to the mall in the first place, there wouldn’t have been this urgent need to get that stuff. The option wouldn’t have been on the table. They would have been blissfully unaware of how unhappy they would be without buying that stuff.

This conundrum is lost on them like water through a screen door.

Right now they’re in their room with their mom organizing and putting away their new summer clothes and putting away the winter stuff. They’re all chatty and girly and at one with the universe.

I don’t know. Maybe it was worth it.



Peace to you.

© LW Publishing 2011