A day of freedom

This weekend, our family had a rare day of schedule freedom. So what did we do? Got the kids a gig selling pies.

Any parents have to get used to centering their lives around their kids, especially when they're toddlers. But when you have a kid who gets a lot of therapies, life gets more regimented. Mostly, I haven't minded—just the opposite. I've always wanted to get Max as much speech, occupational and physical therapy as possible. When he was a tot, we'd take him for craniosacral therapy and hyperbaric oxygen therapy, too.

Now, Max gets therapy once a day after school. On Saturday mornings, his longtime speech therapist comes over. Sunday mornings, he goes to a great program for kids with special needs. Sabrina has her activities, too—tennis, cooking class, dancing.

It's rare to have a day with no plans and when we do, it feels like a gift. Saturday was one of those days: Therapy and activities all got cancelled, for various reasons. We woke up when we wanted to, with nothing to rush for, which felt both weird and seriously wonderful. Sometimes, I feel like the weight of the world is on my shoulders as a parent, but days like these take the pressure off. I felt free—of appointments, structure, responsibilities.

We were just going to loll around the house, maybe go out for dinner, when Dave's dad called. Did we want to come over? He lives a couple hours away. Usually, decide on visits months in advance. But it was gloriously sunny for March, a great day for a road trip, so off we went.

Dave's dad and his girlfriend make and sell these decadent fruit pies—apple, lemon, plum, OMG—and they run a booth at a market on weekends that we hadn't yet seen. The kids had the time of their lives punching register buttons, sampling (and more sampling) and adding up sales. They even got a salary, a whole $2.

Sabrina was so enthralled she asked if she could quit school and help Grandpa Michael sell pies.

Max's favorite pretend play when he was a tot involved cooking in a play kitchen, so this was a fantasy come true. When I gave him a dollar, he put it in the cash register and told me to take a pie. 

Oh, and he remembered to give me a receipt, too.

We were so full of pie, pizza and pickles (all from booths at the market) that we didn't even have dinner. We drove home late, our bellies full, content about a day where no plans turned out to be the plans of all.

And now, of course, I want to plan for more no-plan days.