Yes!

On Super Bowl Sunday Tom went to his brother’s house to watch IU basketball. Have I mentioned that we’re too cheap to pay for cable/satellite in our house? Yeah? Okay.

So he left as I was putting lunch on the table for the girls.

About fifteen minutes into eating lunch, Olivia asked if she could be done. I looked at the food on the table, saw that she’d probably eaten less than a quarter of the soup I’d given her but had eaten all the yogurt and the grapefruit, I told her yes, she could be done.

“I can?” she asked, surprised.

See, we usually cajole her to eat just a little more. She can be finicky and irritating about food and eating.

But that day? It didn’t matter as much. So I replied, “Sure, if you want to be done, you can be done.”

She happily hopped down from her chair and went on her merry way.

Alyssa gave me a look of confusion.

“This is going to be a yes day,” I declared.

“Cool,” Lyss said. “Can I be done too?”

She’d eaten everything but the Pringles I’d put in a bowl for her and Liv to share. Of course, she could be done. Heck, even on a non-yes day, I’d have let her be done if all she was leaving was junk.

I have come to the conclusion that I don’t want to be a ‘clean your plate’ mom. I just don’t. I don’t think it teaches kids anything except to ignore their body’s signals. And that’s not a good thing to teach.

I don’t care about ‘wasting’ food. Once it is on someone’s plate, that food isn’t going to be eaten by someone else whether or not it’s eaten by the person it was meant for or thrown away. The idea that we’re ‘wasting’ good drives me crazy. I’m trying to give the girls more ownership of how much they eat at each meal.

Anyway, yikes, that veered quite far from the whole ‘yes day’ topic, didn’t it?

I managed to keep up with my yeses all day long. If their request wasn’t outrageous and didn’t put anyone at risk, I said yes.

O requests a bath at 3pm? Why not!

It was a good day.

I realize that hearing no once in a while is good for kids. I know that they need boundaries and limitations.

But I can’t help but feel like the world would be a better place if we could all hear yes a little more often.