We've all probably made one at some point in our lives...dreamed of the 100 things we want to do before we die. But how often do we make plans to live our dreams?! I know that having kids was on my bucket list and even though I have three now, I haven't bothered to dust off the list and check that one off-as if the business of living has made the once imagined list of adventures another chore on the to do list.
This last week, through a generous serendipity from my cousin's blog and her giveaway for the NCAA, I was able to cross off an item from my bucket list- going to a national championship game for my college team-and in doing so experienced an even greater gift...
When my cousin first told me I got the tickets, she asked if I was bringing my husband. A nice idea for certain, but he was away on a trip. When I called to tell my husband, he was surprised I was even considering going to a game that was over 9 hours away and when I told him I'd be taking our four-year-old son, he may have asked if he was still talking to his wife. Apparently this mom of three is not known for being a spontaneous adventure-seeker.
When I put the game on my bucket list, I envisioned crowds of people clad in school colors, the familiar sounds of school fight songs, close shots, and edge-of-your-seat plays that bring you to your feet cheering. The semi-final and final games were that and more; but I didn't expect the greater gift of sharing this first national championship game with my son.
Every little aspect of his personality shined from his excited response of, "No, we have tickets," to every street vendor shouting out "tickets" between the parking and the arena, to his repeated questions about the game and who was scoring. And he could have melted my heart at midnight when he awoke and told me he was mad, "Because our team didn't win."
But, quite unexpectedly, one of the best parts was our 10 hour drive home, talking the whole time. We talked about family and friends we had missed, toys we wanted to play with- but that only gets you a couple hours at best. After taking a break to eat, we tried eye-spy again, though it got a little boring. So, we turned to an old classic where he would say letters of the alphabet and we'd find them on signs.
We tried telling jokes for awhile, but apparently we don't know that many between us. At that moment, I started thinking my husband may have been right when he said we should've purchased a video system for the car. But then I got creative and we started playing guessing games. We took turns describing animals and the other person had to guess the animal. He was surprisingly sophisticated in his descriptions, being careful not to give away the answers. This went on for almost an hour before we switched to superheroes, then back to animals before we tried food (which was slightly problematic because we got so hungry we had to stop for a snack).
Before I knew it, we had filled up the better part of the last 4 hours with our car games, laughing at all the silly words we would say and the even sillier jokes we would try to make up that really weren't funny at all.
I thought I was taking this trip to cross an item off my bucket list and what I really did was build an even better relationship with my son- an adventure I want to go on every day.
~Have fun and live healthy