What to say Instead...of "Just No"?

You know I adore Glennon Melton of Momastery.  She's a canary (read about her to understand what that means).  Today she posted about not only teaching our kiddos to "just say no" but instead HOW to say no.  Brilliant!!  I remember... okay who am I kidding.  I know how self conscious you can feel in a social situation, I want to be liked and not look stupid.  While I'm eons from needing this nugget of wisdom, I want to remember it for me, so I can help my kiddo(s) when the time comes.  

Yes, we spend hours talking to our kids about WHY to say no, but we don’t tell them HOW to say no. When they are put on the spot, they don’t have hours to explain their decisions to their peers. They have a split second. And while our teens and ‘tweens want to make the right decisions, they often want to avoid awkwardness even more. In the absence of a plan, they’ll likely default to yes. Just like we so often do. Maybe they’re not saying yes because they want to rebel—maybe they really do say yes because they don’t know what else to say. They need help knowing, preparing. That is where we come in.

Watching him walk from the window

I'm lucky.  I am able to work from home and I have a caring nanny who takes good care of Tripp during the day.  Maggie and Tripp just walked down the lane together holding hands, she stopped and squatted.  There was something on the ground that she picked up and I could tell they were talking about it.  Maybe a caterpillar.  After a minute, she placed whatever it was in the yard, took Tripp's hand and continued walking down the lane.  

This scene just tore up my heart.  I should be out there with Tripp...holding his hand, talking about the bugs and trees and enjoying the sunshine.  He's only little for a so long.  Instead, I'm upstairs, negotiating data from spreadsheets, trying to make sense of numbers and widgets to audit big company's telecom spend.  

I'm thankful that I've been able to arrange for people to care for Tripp, and can have a good career, and be close.  Yet, I still feel so sad.  I want to walk thru the world with him and not miss the wonder and the most adorable exclamations of 'WOW' that come from his little mouth.