I think about my friend Amy a lot--it's hard not to when we read her books to our kids a lot. One of the our older one's favorites is  Yes Day!, where the parents say yes to a kid's whims, like having ice cream whenever and playing silly games and inviting a friend over spontaneously. We'd talk about doing it and it felt like the kind of thing you should say yes to at least once in your life.

We did it Sunday. I recommend doing this with a kid at least once in your lives because it is just a good way to break routine, like it feels like an extra Christmas but without all the b.s. It was very fun to count down to, possibly more than the actual day.  

Something that was lucky for the kids was that we planned it right around Halloween so they legitimately ate candy for breakfast. M&Ms and Snickers and Smarties and Nerds and suckers and other things. I know that this will legitimately horrify some people I know--good friends--and I understand why but I guess the experience to me outweighs the health risks. As I write they made it through the day without barfing or any  gigantic  meltdowns so at least for the day it wasn't a health nightmare. The next few days will tell.

I'd recommend doing it on a day where it will likely be nice outside. It was not nice out Sunday so we didn't do spontaneous stuff like go to the park with his friends or on a bike ride. He asked to go downtown right after the Bears game let out and we said no. He also had ice cream two hours after the candy. I know! It's terrible. I used to work for a nutritionist who would be so mad at me right now. But it was fun.  

I was on my phone less because I knew I had to say yes to anything he asked so I couldn't get deep into the news or social media, which was not bad, obviously.We actually did play a lot--we have a lot of tiny soft balls around and we spent a lot of time just throwing those around. I got out all the crafts stuff which ate up about 20 minutes, tops. I took Paul to the comic book shop and I got myself a Wonder Woman keychain. He saw my parents. We went out to dinner and he got a hot dog. What really helped was that I took two hours to have two glasses of wine with two girlfriends.  

I realized at the end of the day that our Yes Day was many parents' every day (minus all the sugar). My husband and I say no a lot I don't always drop everything to play with them so it was good to set a day aside to do that, but just one per year max is fine.   As I realized I'd have to pick up most of the the completely destroyed kitchen just to feel sane again and Paul drifted down repeatedly hours after his bedtime we agreed that we were looking forward to it being No Day again.