Guilt is a wonderful thing in parenting. Not the kind of guilt that some parents (*cough*stupidex*cough*cough*) use to abdicate their day-to-day parenting responsibilities because it’s just more fun to be a travelling carnival, but just a little dab of guilt will do ya, sometimes.

On the heels of yesterday’s don’t-you-lie-to-me-young-lady-oops-you-didn’t debacle, I had an early morning chat with the Chickadee just to tie up loose ends. By the time we headed to school I think things were more or less resolved; she seemed fine, and I felt better. But the littlest smidge of guilt remained throughout the day.

Let it fester? Heck no. The fix: A rare appearance of… Fun Mama!

Dinner tonight? Ice cream sundaes. Oh yes. We so did. Two kinds of toppings. Cherries, even. Sprinkles everywhere. You have never seen two children eat so fast in your life. They crouched protectively over their bowls, glancing up now and then to check that I wasn’t going to morph back into Practical Mama and take their sundaes away.

By bedtime they seemed relieved to welcome back my usual, directive-barking persona. And truthfully, I am more comfortable in that role. But I’m pretty sure we were all due for a little detour into frivolity… and sometimes you have to put care and feeding of the soul ahead of the food pyramid.