At a time when many people are vowing to use the word “NO” more to commitments and requests this coming year, I’m choosing to say “Sure”.  To my kids.

I love the word “sure”. And here is why. During routine speech evaluations at school last fall, Stella was flagged for something with her “r’s”. But along with it, was a note that she’ll grow out of it. {Speech friends, feel free to make me worry about this more if I should.} Anyway, she answers questions and requests with “sure” a lot and it comes out all sweet and cute and quick and almost sounding like “shore”.  It’s not a hesitant, sighing “sure”, it’s upbeat and happy.  Like she genuinely wants to do whatever it is.

And I often finding myself answering my kids the following ways when they request a book read, game played, or even a snuggle moment:

“As soon as I…”

“Once I get ABC completed…”

“In a minute…”

“Not right now…”

“Maybe later…”

“I really need to XYZ first….”

The list goes on and on. It’s not that I don’t complete the request…it’s just not usually right when requested. And sometimes by the time I’m ready, they’ve moved on and the moment is lost. And other stuff really can wait. So I vow to wow and tell them “Sure!” more often. Because how much longer are they going to even ask to do those things…with me??

We went out and played in the snow over break. And my goal was to get the driveway shoveled. The kids did a few rounds of sledding down the neighbor’s hill and then asked about a snowman. My first thought was “as soon as I get the driveway finished”, but instead I stopped myself and said “Sure!” What a fun time. The girls, the neighbor and I worked HARD on that snowman. It was later in the day and the snow was not sticking that great. It took what seemed like forever and he was really small. But we at least got something put together. We were proud!

And then later the kids and I ran over to my mom’s and saw this as we drove down our street:

The taller one is about 7 foot high.  WOW!  The kids were immediately asking “If it snows again, can we try to do that?” I hesitated, but still replied, “Sure”.

If you had to pick a word for the new year, what would it be?