I’m sitting here at home, on my couch, looking for a moment I wanted to share with all of you.

I knew I had posted it on Facebook. But for some reason, I thought it happened about two years ago. But no, it was five years ago! FIVE! In the grand scheme of things, five years isn’t that long. But when your kids reach a certain age, five years is forever ago. The amount of change that happens between five years is, CA-RA-ZY. Anyways, side tangent over.

Morgan has ALWAYS loved to ride bikes. Still does. Five years ago she would ask all the time. Like… Every. Single. Day. As a parent, you love your kids. But there comes a time when you just need, well, you need a break. This was one of those times. The day before, she had asked to ride bikes when I got home. And, well, since it was raining I said no, we couldn’t do it. She asked why. My response, “Sweetie, it’s raining. If we go for a bike ride now, we’ll get all wet. Our legs and shoes and clothes will get all muddy. We’ll be a mess. Let’s see what the weather is like tomorrow.” I could tell she was disappointed. But I just didn’t want to clean up that mess. And, I needed a break from riding bikes (my seat is terrible).

The next day rolls around. I’m driving home and it starts to rain. As I walk in the house, Mo comes running up to me and asks, “Can we go for a bike ride?” And in my head I’m thinking, “Our clothes are gonna get wet. Our shoes might get ruined. We’ll definitely get muddy. It’s gonna be a huge mess.” But when I get done thinking those things, I start thinking, “We’ll definitely get wet. It’s not cold out, it’s the middle of June. There’s no thunder or lightening. This is something I’d love to have done as a kid. We’ll definitely have fun. And it’s memories they’ll have for sure.” So I say to Mo, “It’s raining.” She says, “Awwww.” To which I said, “Wanna go for a bike ride IN THE RAIN?” Mo and Carter at the same time asked, “CAN WE?” And I said, “Absolutely! Get your bikes.”

Did we get wet? 100 percent. We were soaked. Were we muddy? Absolutely. I made sure we rode through all of the puddles. Did our shoes get ruined? I have no clue. I just know that as we were riding through our neighborhood, there was nonstop giggles and fun. It’s something they still talk about five years later. It was an absolute mess. But it was worth it.

Fast forward five years. Carter shows Jami and I a TikTok video of a guy making homemade funnel cakes, deep fried Oreos and deep fried Reese’s Cups. My first thought, man, this could be a real mess. Two inches of vegetable oil in a pan. A 15 year old in charge of this little project. And powdered sugar. What could go wrong? We literally put this experiment off for a couple of days. But there was no chance that he was gonna forget about this. So, we said ok. And, it turned out to be a mess. We had dishes all over the kitchen. Powdered sugar everywhere (mostly because of me). Burnt chocolate smell. Like I said. It was a mess. But, Carter loved getting it ready, following the instructions, and watching what he did actually work. It was fun. He was successful at what he set out to do. And we made memories.

There have been times throughout the years that we have said no to things our kids wanted to do because we knew that there would be a giant mess to clean up. I wish I had those times back, honestly. In the last five years, we’ve begun to intentionally said yes to things (like our Christmas Dinner Christmas Card) because we know that sometimes the moment means more than the mess. The memories that will be created in the moment you have with your children will far outweigh the mess that it creates. And I want more memory-filled moments in our house… even if it creates a huge mess.

It’s ok to have a mess. Because the moment means more than the mess.

Morgan, Carter and Me. June 14, 2015. This moment meant more than the mess.