My 7 year old, Lauryn has enough school spirit for the whole school. I didn’t think it was possible for her to have more until she got Ms. V, but low and behold her passion for her school, her classmates, and her community grew. So she would have wanted to go to the Summer Solstice event at school even if it wasn’t billed as the be all end all end of school year party.
But then it happened. You know the one thing that can stop a party faster than a speeding bullet. She puked. At school.
Sad face.
That means, no staying at school and no summer solstice.
Sad face again.
I knew she was sick when she didn’t even ask me could she go. When Leila mentioned it, she simply said, “Next year, Leila.”
She didn’t make this any easier on me.
So daddy and I decided to make it up to her and come up with a second chance event for the next day, if she was feeling better. Thankfully she was, and believe it or not, I think our second chance solstice was even better than the original, and here’s three things I’m grateful for from our second chance summer solstice.
1. We’ve all heard that the best things in life are free, and I tend to agree, but free and readily available can’t be beat. We opted for an indoor activity to start our replacement day and took the kids to the Indianapolis Museum of Art. After almost 8 years here, we’ve never been, but we absolutely loved it. The kids have asked me when they get to go back already.
Moral of the story: Sometimes great things are right under your nose.
2. After the trip to the museum, we found out that there was a summer solstice event at the IMA, that very evening, free AND with live music. We are not your typical outdoor type people and I don’t think my kids have ever experienced a live band outside of Sunday service, but what an amazing time we had!
My favorite song, the one I listen to when being a mom is just too hard and I need some inspiration, the one I plan on having played at my funeral, (not morbid, just saying) is the Lee Ann Womack version of I Hope You Dance. The lyrics are beyond beautiful. The line that gets me, every time, is “when you get the chance to sit it out or dance, I hope you dance”. Listening to the live band, my girls jumped up hand in hand and danced, out in the open, in front of everyone. It’s exactly what I wanted for them and here it was, completely unexpectedly.
Moral of the story: Even when things don’t go as planned, your kids can still get the experience of a lifetime.
3. As we were leaving, the kids were getting tired, and so was I. Still, we opted for the scenic route home. I could have taken the highway, but why not roll the windows down and just cruise. We took a path I was moderately familiar with, but the kids had never been this way before. Along the road, we heard a few of our favorite tweenager cruising songs, a little Selena Gomez, a little Taylor Swift (don’t judge). With the wind blowing and the dusk falling, no one worried about knowing the exact words or the perfect pitch. Hearing them belt it out in the backseat, now that’s priceless.
Moral of the story: There’s more than one way to reach your destination, sometimes the long way is the best.
