Fireworks in the Rain

I have made the decision to start living.

For most of my life I have just gone through the motions, getting through each day. Most recently, my days have gone something like this: "Only 2 more hours until naptime" or "My hubby will be home in 1/2 an hour!" and "I can't wait until tomorrow because of such and such." I spend most of my time just surviving. Existing, but not living.

This was made all too clear to me just this morning during breakfast. My husband and I had some fun things planned for today, and were excited to tell Becca about them. This is how our breakfast conversation went:
Renee: "Becca...guess what we're going to do today. Something really fun!"
Becca: (with excitement) "Go to the grocery store?"

My lack of living has made the homebody in me become increasingly magnified. It's just easier to sit at home and count down the hours until naptime...keeping myself occupied by cleaning the house, doing laundry, or reading the paper while the girls entertain themselves.

But not anymore. I am going to start living deliberately. Deliberately spending time with my girls, helping them experience things that make them laugh with delight, or squeal with excitement. Deliberately looking for ways to fit a little bit more life into each day.

Today was my first day of living deliberately. We couldn't do as much as I would have liked, since we're all still recovering from the summer cold that won't end, but we did more than we usually do.

We had a picnic at the park and played on the playground. We spun Becca round and round on a tire swing until she got so dizzy that she couldn't walk straight. We pushed her and Allie in the swings, and laughed with them as they squealed with delight. We cheered for Becca when she went down the big slides all by herself.

We went to the 'lake' (at the same park as the playground) and let the girls play in the sand. My husband went in the water with Becca and spent as much time as she wanted just being with her, playing with her, and watching her sheer delight at being in the water. I followed Allie as she ran after the seagulls and watched kids building sand castles.

We let them nap as long as they could, and woke them up in time for dinner.

After dinner, we went to the grocery store (it was what Becca wanted to do, after all!) and let Becca drive the car that was attached to our cart.

After the store we went to a different park, where there had been a Hometown Festival happening all day. We watched people participating in fair-like stuff, and listened to the live rock band entertainment. We sat on a blanket and ate Twizzlers, then I went with Becca as she played on her second playground of the day, in the dark. I cheered her on as she held her own with the bigger kids, and was amazed when she climbed up the monkey bar sides of the equipment like she'd been doing it forever. I held my breath when she climbed up to a slide that would make me nervous, and went down by herself without batting an eye. We danced to the music that was all around us, with Allie. We laughed at her silliness, and her love of music. We huddled together under an umbrella as it started to rain. And we watched fireworks. We relished the pure awe and amazement in our daughters' faces as they saw fireworks for the first time. We clapped and cheered, and hooted and hollered, all in the rain.

And then we put our very tired little girls into bed at 10:00, about 2 hours later than usual. And we smiled, knowing that we fit a lot of life into today.