Family Day is a lot different when you are the parent of a 17 and 19-year-old.
Mark never got the day off, but I’m fortunate that I worked from home and made my own schedule for the most part. This was what our Family Day weekend looked like a mere four years ago. We’ve also gone XC skiing and walked in the woods and fed the chickadees. I remember making maple taffy, building snow forts (and making ice cream out of snow too!), and binge-watching Veronica Mars in our PJs. It’s a bit different now. First of all, it requires a lot less effort.
It’s reading week for the eldest and she brought two friends home with her, one of whom has never been to Ottawa before. Over the past couple of days they’ve skated on the canal, eaten BeaverTails, taken in the sights of Winterlude, shopped in the Byward Market, and gone skiing on the SJAM Winter Trail. Today, our youngest took the bus downtown with a friend. Afterward, she and I had a driving lesson. I spent most of the day writing and editing. I did my 30 minutes on the treadmill and prepped a batch of pizza dough for dinner. (I may also make bacon-wrapped water chestnuts! Yum.) I took my laptop into the family room and watched the birds flit back and forth from our feeder.
It’s a very different kind of Family Day for us now. I remember those old days fondly, when the girls were small and looked forward to whatever adventures came their way. Today it’s a bit less frantic, a bit less “oh my god, everything is closed including the LCBO,” and I’m fine with this. We made maple taffy last night and enjoyed it very much.
