Waiting for the Parade: How to Evaluate Time Well-Spent

 Some of us are blessed with more patience than others.  Some of us are blessed with children who are more patient than others.  Some of us are blessed with neither and have to decide to make lemonade out of lemons...like when you're waiting for a parade to go by and Mom forgot to bring snacks, or toys, or drinks, or...anything fun (because she thought the parade was the fun, diverting part of the excursion - silly Mom). 

And when the parade finally finally FINALLY goes by we all ask ourselves, "Was it worth it?"
Well, our process of evaluating time well-spent has changed since having kids.  We sat out in the hot sun waiting for a parade for nearly forty-five minutes (we were near the end), and then sat in the hot sun watching a parade that didn't even include a marching band (okay there were marching bap pipe-players, bag pipe-ists? bag pipers!) go by for another forty-five minutes, and listened to two hungry, hot, tired boys complain the whole way home while we sat in the worst traffic I have ever seen in our small town (it took us fifteen minutes to get home! ha!).

BUT Luke got to wave at the Winkler police, and high five a volunteer fireman, and ooh and aah over the man on stilts, and Seamus jumped and giggled when the fire engine blared its horn, and spent fifteen minutes amusing himself and his Mom putting on and taking off Mom's sunglasses, and pointed at the horses saying, "Dog! Dog!"  While we watched, Luke very maturely turned to us and waxed reminiscent, "Remember last year at the parade...?"  Under our new evaluation system this is a very positive result. Did the kids enjoy themselves?  Have we just built new and positive childhood memories?  Could this be the beginning of a family tradition?  Did Mommy learn a lesson: to pack snacks and toys no matter what?  If the answer is yes, I believe we can say that despite the myriad and fruitful ways we could have spent our Saturday morning, waiting for the parade was time well-spent.