Spontaneity

This morning when we woke up I had a list in my mind of the errands I wanted to accomplish before lunch. (You know you're a mommy of two young children when you realize you MUST get back home for lunchtime or else the little monsters living inside of your children come out to eat you alive!) I wanted to go back to the consignment shop because I found a few more things I wanted to try to sell, and I need to exchange the shorts I bought for Cayman the other day. We also needed to go back to Old Navy to exchange Charis' shirts that I had already washed because they all shrunk! (They did let me return them, by the way! Not sure if all Old Navys will let you do this!) These two stores are on opposite sides of town, and I knew we needed to be out of the house by at least 10 to beat the monsters.

Cayman, however, was NOT on my schedule this morning. He was moving as slow as molasses, did not want to do anything I asked of him, kept finding things along our route to the car to slow us down, couldn't find Boo, etc. etc. And then just as I found Boo and we were heading to the car, Ian called and asked me to do him a favor. I begrudgingly completed his task (sorry babe!), but it put us back another ten minutes. By the time we finally made it out to the van, I was spent! And irritated that we were not on MY schedule!

Then it happened.

Spontaneity.

As I was buckling Cayman into his car seat, I saw the most beautiful, graceful bird walking across our driveway, just feet from our garage door. [Mena, you would have been so jealous - you missed out on seeing one of your birds up close and personal!] I threw out my "plan" for our day, took Cayman back out of his car seat, and we stood in our garage, whispering back and forth together about God's beautiful creation. I persuaded him not to go run up and scare the bird (seriously, where does he learn these things?!) and instead we just stood and watched it gracefully and silently make its way across our driveway and tiny "yard" (or landscaped area separating us from our neighbors). Who cares about a stupid schedule when you get to experience such neat little moments like that with your son?

Then tonight, I tried out my spontaneity once more. We were driving home from Best Buy (it seems we've hit a bump in the road with the powerpoint presentation/picture slideshow we've worked so hard on for the seminar this weekend!) and drove past a little strip mall that we've passed hundreds of times now since we've lived here. The area is not even a mile from where we live, and there are about 4 little restaurants that boast about being waterfront. I've always wanted to try one of the restaurants, but since we don't really eat out too often, we've never tried them. Tonight I told Ian as we drove past that one day I wanted to go to one of those places. Immediately he (probably jokingly) asked, "Want to tonight?" I thought about it for a brief second or two, weighing the options of leftovers or a hot, fresh meal. I think I surprised him when I said, "Sure!" We finally settled on Harborside Bar and Grill...but after seating ourselves, waiting for a few minutes to even see a waiter, and hearing someone at the table next to us say they'd been waiting over 45 minutes for their food, we decided to choose one of the other restaurants! So we walked down the dock beside the large yachts anchored in the water to the next restaurant - Cactus Jack's. We were seated immediately by the host, and almost as quickly our waitress greeted us. We even ordered an appetizer! (Shocker!!!) We sat outside by the boats in the "tiki hut" part of the restaurant. The wea[slideshow]ther was fantastic, the food was great, and the kids were happy and pleasant to be with. We had such a fun, spontaneous dinner!

I'm glad I threw caution to the wind today and enjoyed the special little moments with my sweet family.

On a side note... Ian and I are constantly amazed by Cayman's speech and intelligence. The other day when we went to the grocery store, Cayman chose the cart with the steering wheels (of course). He likes to help me drive. On the way out to the van, we were dodging cars, and I shouted "Turn right!" He turned right. "Turn left!" He turned his steering wheel left. Every single time, he turned the right direction! No coaching from his mama! And no, I'm not lying! :)

We passed a truck yesterday that was missing its tailgate. Cayman said, "Mama, that truck broken. Big Al can fix it." (Big Al is my daddy.) Today we passed by another car, and automatically Cayman said, "Big Al needs to fix that car." I don't even know what was wrong with it. So we started singing (in our best "Bob the Builder" tune) "Big Al the Fixer...can he fix it? Big Al the Fixer....yes he can!" Eventually, Cayman incorporated his own lyrics as he sung solo. "Big Al the fixer...can he fix it? Yes sir!"

Oh yeah! And today when we were leaving the consignment shop, everyone was buckled in, and Cayman started saying something that I couldn't quite make out. As I was backing out of my parking space, I finally realized what he was saying. "Mama, you need to get your basket!" I had left my laundry basket (the shop only accepts clothes in laundry baskets - I guess bags and boxes are not good enough anymore...) inside the store, and he was reminding me to go get it! Oh - and you can never forget to buckle your seatbelt with that kiddo in the backseat! He tells us everytime that we need to put our seatbelts on.

I'm thinking that we better get started quick with teaching this child. The sky's the limit with him!