As promised, today was full of rain. Not quite hurricane-force, but cold and rainy and windy for sure. Even though I was prepared for it, for some reason I just woke up crabby. It probably has something to do with not going to bed til 1 am...maybe. Last night we were able to go to the quarterly wine club party at Blenheim Vineyards, where we're members. (oh SO fancy, right? ha. It was a gift, and it's the most chill winery I've ever been to. I love it!) Its claim to fame is that Dave Matthews owns it, although he's rarely there. Fun fact: he was there, on Father's Day, and I totally used my baby as a way to meet him. Cute babies for the win! Here's proof:
We decided that this will now be a date night ritual; every 3 months, we go to this shindig and get to feel fancy and drink good wine. Anyway, the winery is about an hour away, and after all the fun of the party we went to Whole Foods to get groceries, so we didn't get home til after 11. Which is exactly when the baby decided to wake up, and not really settle til after 12:30. AM. I don't know the last time I stayed up that late, which is both comical and awesome at the same time. I'm totally OK with quiet evenings at home these days. Mainly because they're quiet.
My crabby self was having a hard time getting out of its funk this morning...between the 3 year old's nonstop talking and the baby refusing to nap, things were escalating quickly to where the whole day could have just gone to the crapper. Instead, I did a lot of inward self-talk (this is not a normal day. You are tired. You're all tired. Their attitudes don't have to shape yours. Etc. Etc.) and jumped in the car to meet some friends at our local children's museum. And on the way, I realized that it's kind of becoming a Friday 'thing' to go there, and I like it. The rest of our week is pretty busy with preschool, Bible study and other commitments, so Friday has become our rest day, our 'fun' day.
I'm big on routine, but am realizing that sometimes those routines have to be extremely flexible with small children. So we have 'days' each week.
Sundays are church and family days, and Sunday nights I plan our week.
Mondays I usually finish up what I didn't get planned Sunday night, (usually due to important things like Downton Abbey), and I try to attend The Motherhood Collective.
Tuesdays are writing mornings for me, school for Graham. It's also 'goat milk day!' (is that weird that it's a thing? It is.) where we go pick up Jude's goat milk and get any chicken supplies, etc. that we need.
Wednesdays are school for Graham, and cleaning day at home. We do the whole house in a day, but we have the WHOLE day to do it, so it's less stressful to me. I also have yoga Wednesday evenings.
Thursdays are Bible Study morning and usually a Target or other 'fun' errand in the afternoon. (library, etc.)
Fridays are, apparently, 'fun'. I love when routines and rituals just organically happen, like going to the children's museum!
Saturdays are usually family outings - sometimes just running errands or going to the market, other times we'll do day trips in our area.
Today, when we came home Jude proceeded to sleep for 3 hours(!!!) so Graham and I watched Frozen (I actually napped next to him and pretended to know what was going on when he'd lean into my face and say 'Mommy, did you see that? That was so funny.') then ended up making a bunch of food. We made bone broth for soup and cooked and mashed butternut squash from our garden to use in place of pumpkin (which I forgot at the store). We then made pumpkin scones (with EGGS. this is big. Food trial for Graham, he used to be highly allergic...so far, so good!) and made dinner for this evening as well. We ended up with leftovers, the beginnings of soup for tomorrow, scones and enough pureed squash for muffins...it got me thinking, maybe Friday afternoons/evenings will be reserved for 'Food Prep' after all our fun! (why Friday is the only alliterated day, I don't know, but for fear of being far more cheesy than this already is, we'll leave it there.)
Rituals are how I keep things 'simple' for us. I'm a planner by nature, and constantly am fighting the tension of that tendency while living in our reality. All of this rambling to say, today turned out OK after all. We giggled and played, there were time outs and tantrums (by all, ha!) but overall, a good one. Here's to rainy days, rituals, and turning the day around! And here's a cute picture of my boys wrestling in the kitchen, because they're boys, and that's what they do.
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