“This is better than my dream!” my four-year-old said as she sat down with her legs crossed at her ankles and her own glass of lemonade in her hand. She was beaming with joy!
She had been wanting to do a lemonade stand for months. And I kept putting it off. We have a four-year-old, two-year-old, and four-month-old so anything extra gets put off. It’s just busy on a normal day. And let’s be honest, if a four-year-old is planning a lemonade stand, an adult is definitely doing a lot (if not all) of the work. In early October I realized we needed to do this now or never. Or at least now before it gets and stays cold!
Even though she’s only four years old, she has big dreams—sharing a room with her sister, having bunk beds, going camping, becoming an astronaut, ice skating, having a lemonade stand, etc. The big dreams of a little kid. The fun dreams! I want to help my kids dreams come true! Not all have come true and she keeps adding to the list, but I knew we could help her make the lemonade stand a reality.
I’m not even sure where she got the idea from. A book. A show. Who knows. But we got a book on how to have a lemonade stand from the library and she bookmarked the pages that she wanted to create in real life. I did look into the Lemonade Day website but we were so last minute, I decided to bookmark that for the future. She made a pennant banner and a sign and helped me make cookies and lemonade. I posted about it in our neighborhood Facebook group and invited her preschool buddy’s family to come too.
She helped my husband set up the table and put everything out. And even though she was disappointed that it didn’t have an awning or look exactly like the ones in books, she was pleased and super excited. And our neighbors showed up. We moved to our current house the week before the shutdowns started in March of 2020 and we literally hit the jackpot with our little street–most of our neighbors are grandparents of their own and have lived on the street for decades so they love seeing a family with young kids move in and they’re naturals at engaging with our kids! Our driveway became a little neighborhood hangout for a few hours that day complete with a few neighbors bringing their own lawn chairs to really enjoy this lemonade stand.
When it was over, she just sat back in her chair smiling. She was so pleased with herself. Almost giddy. She saw the realization of her dream coming true. Or at least one of her dreams. Her cup was filled–neighbors and friends loved it and told her. Our words have so much power!
When I think about this little endeavor, I’m reminded that we each have dreams. Obviously, some are bigger than others, but I realized that in the busyness that is life, I don’t always allow myself time to dream. And while I want to help my kid’s dreams come true, I also want to allow myself to dream-up fun things for myself and my family. What are your dreams? A dance class? A new hobby? Hosting a dinner? To be honest, in my brain fog of having three little kids at home, I’m not sure what my fun dreams are right now, but I want to be like a little kid and dream of fun things to do, to create, to learn. And I want to be able to step back and smile at the dreams that have come true and not just move on to the next thing. I want to be content and sit back, smile and be giddy over the dreams that have come true.
