While last year summertime with three kids at home was, well, challenging–this year, after the advent of the amazing routine that got them to stop fighting, it was–dare I say it?
Easy.
Magical.
Fun.
I’m a routine girl, so I thought I would be all about planning, bucket listing, and scheduling after the first week of unstructured-school-year-recovery. But I was surprised that this summer none of us needed that.
We kept our lunchtime and “quiet time” the same every day (those are some of the anchor points that keep us all feeling confident and steady) and the kids’ bedtime between 7 and 8pm, but other than that we filled our time as needed–sometimes working and cleaning, most times playing and creating.
She unloaded my bathroom cabinet multiple times and said, “I help you? I help you?” until I helped her put on my necklaces.
We went to the park and took turns pushing baby sister.
We took selfies.
We searched Target & Walmart’s stashes of personalized Cokes for weeks, until we finally found Daddy’s name so we could #shareacoke with him. (Food/drink tastes better if it literally has your name on it, btw.)
We practiced bike-riding and watched caterpillars in an empty church parking lot.
I made art and hung it on the walls.
Sometimes, when Steve was off work, he made us extra fancy breakfasts.
We went to a minor league baseball game, and watched the kids run around instead of watching the actual baseball.
We built pillow forts.
Our hair grew longer, and some of us got haircuts while others wore pigtails.
We asked for our pictures to be taken (and then some of us immediately wanted to see how they looked).
We read lots of books! (LOTS more than this.)
We made impromptu trips to Michael’s for craft supplies while wearing silly hats.
We reinstated Taco Tuesdays, enjoyed the smell of tomatoes from the vine (grown by farmers, not by me), and giggled a lot.
We built more pillow forts.
We took the time to look at the sky.
We made many, many, many, many Lego creations (like this amazing train: complete with animal car, karaoke, dining car, art car, and botanical car).
And every time we went to Target, we made time to visit our favorite toy aisles, scan something under one of those fascinating magical price checkers, or press buttons on Lego displays.
To do this, we had to have margin. I had to consciously create space in our days for us to explore, create, and rest. Sometimes that meant saying no to weekly playgroups or other could-be-fun activities. Sometimes it meant putting most of the toys away so cleanup could be easier and faster and play could be more focused. Often it meant leaving the “urgent” but less-important things undone: bathrooms cleaned as necessary instead of on a schedule, laundry washed and clean but left unfolded.
Our family gets along so well and enjoys each other so much in the summertime–and it’s mostly because I am so much less stressed. There’s this quirky old saying that goes, “If mama ain’t happy, ain’t nobody happy.” It’s so true. And guess what? This mama ain’t happy when she overschedules herself and her kiddos.
So as we dive in to this new school year, I encourage you to make a point of building more margin into your family life. Minimize your commitments to the most important ones, so you have time to be together without feeling rushed, stressed, and over-stretched.
I’ll be writing more about this in the coming weeks, but for now, just hold the idea of margin in your mind whenever someone asks you to take on a new task, join a committee, or commit your kids to an extracurricular. It will make your yes responses more purposeful, and your no responses easier to give. 🙂
xo,
Jamie