Our Very Own “Yes Day!”

The Inspiration

My kids have a book that they like to read called “Yes Day!” written by Amy Krouse and Tom Lichtenheld.  The storyline is simple: there is one day out of the year that everything the little boy’s parent say YES to whatever he requests. Of course my kids have been asking for their own Yes Day for months.

I’m all about life being the party (obvs), so the idea totally sounded like fun to me – the problem? What with Christmas, birthday parties, spring break trip to Miami and more, there never seemed to be a stretch of time where my kids didn’t have any super-fun experiences happening that would warrant the need for a Yes Day.  Finally, last weekend felt right – we hadn’t been doing anything of note lately and so I thought the timing was good.

The kids woke me up on Saturday morning as usual (but somehow they can never wake up for school on their own during the week) and came bounding into my room with the typical: “She pinched me! He hid my blanket! She changed the channel!” gripes.  I sternly said: “I don’t want to hear it. Chatterbox – please go to the printer and pickup my documents.”

She sighed her dramatic 7-year-old sigh and stomped off to the printer.  I smiled to myself waiting to hear her voice.  About 30-seconds later it came: “YAAAAAAAAAAY!!!!!!!!!! Guys!! It’s YES DAY!!!!!!!”

I had printed 3 separate sheets in reverse order so that when she went to the printer she saw:

It’s

YES

Day!!!!!

And we were off.  The first request was poposicles for breakfast. And I quickly established some ground rules.

Yes Day Ground Rules

1. No individual request could cost more than $10
2. They had to eat at least ONE healthy meal for the day
3. No requests for dangerous activities (i.e. riding bikes in the street)
4. Our normal house rules apply

The Fun

After a nutritious breakfast of popsicles (the funny thing was that they realized they were still hungry and asked for a normal breakfast), we headed to…Chuck E. Cheese – naturally.

I was thankful that we were there bright and early before the usual chaos.  After they used up their 40 tokens it was time for lunch: one request for Curry Chicken and 2 requests for chicken nuggets later, we enjoyed a picnic lunch on the grass at home. Then it was off to 7-Eleven for junk and then a trip to the park.

While L’il Buddy took a nap, Chatterbox had a Girl Scout meeting and Giggles wanted to tag along.  Two and a half hours later, we were headed home from the meeting and I was exhausted and looking forward to crashing on the couch.

No such luck. As soon as we walked in the door Hubby said: “Ok! L’il Buddy wants to hit Dave & Buster’s! Let’s go!”

Ahem. That was not the plan. Chuck E. Cheese and D&B in the same day? Now we were officially excessive.  But…it was Yes Day after all, so I had to oblige.  I warned Hubby that the trip to D&B was a rogue activity because it would certainly be more than $10 – so much for my rules!

We ate dinner there and played a bunch of loud games – returning home at 10pm beyond beat.

The upside to an outing at Dave & Buster's.

Giggles was sobbing on the way from the car to the house.  When I asked her what was wrong she said: “I’m sad because Yes Day is OVER!” And I convinced her that she should be happy that she had fun on Yes Day instead of being sad that it was over.

A teachable moment that let me regain my parenting dignity after a completely indulgent day.  “How often are you gonna do these?” my sister asked via text?

“Only in leap years,” I said. It will take me at least that long to recover.