20 Ways to Make Today Special

How many individual days do you remember from your childhood? How many were magical? Here's some things to try that your children will carry with them. And hopefully make you smile a little too...

1. Leave a secret "I love you" message hidden in a lunch box, painted on their pancakes or tucked into their shoes. Better yet, leave a dozen.
   
   
2. Fake a doctor's appointment. If you have kids in school, let them (and the school) think they have to get out of school for an appointment. Pick them up and take them to a picnic in the park instead (or whatever you'd both enjoy).
   
   
3. Have a tacky fashion show. Get together the loudest clothes you can find and give out awards for the worst entries. Eat supper in costume.
   
   
4. Write them a letter telling her how much you love them, and why. Be specific.
   
   
5. Square dance. In the living room. Grown ups too. Make it up if you don't know how.
   
   
6. Tell your kids their birth stories. Add the little details and tell them if you cried or daddy wouldn't let them go.
   
   
7. Serve meals out of order. Have lunch for breakfast, desert for lunch, etc.
   
   
8. Eat it with the wrong utensils and be artistic with it. Pipe tartar sauce haikus across the fish sticks and then scramble them to make new poems. You get the idea.
   
   
9. Crawl under the table with your little one. Do at least three different normal activities under there (reading books, brushing teeth, snack time...)
   
   
10. Get together a pile of your children's artwork and take the kids to a senior citizen center. Pass out the art and spend time with the residents. Let your kids know how happy they made people.
    
    
11. Give your child a disposable camera and tell her to record all her favorite parts of her life with the photos.
    
    
12. Go for a long walk and just talk.
    
    
13. Play truth or dare.
    
    
14. Have a campout in the living room. Roast marshmallows over candles and tell ghost stories by flashlight.
    
    
15. If you have access to a camcorder, record at least an hour of silliness. Add some sentiment too, having everybody tell things they're thankful for, what they've loved about this year, and things they love about each other. Close with more silliness.
    
    
16. Help them decorate their rooms with glow-in-the-dark stars, bugs or images. Better yet, get GITD paint and they can paint their own.
    
    
17. Go on a road trip for the day, anywhere you've never been.
    
    
18. Write a silly poem or story just for him. Make him the hero and fill it with stuff he loves.
    
    
19. After dark, go look at the stars together.
    
    
20. Spend the whole day saying "mommy loves you." Say it so much you're annoying and strange! At the end of the night, tiptoe in and whisper it to them as they sleep. Fill them up with how loved they are, and tiptoe out.

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All works on this site Alicia Bayer unless otherwise noted.
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