Some time ago I came up with a handy dandy summer survival motto for my mom-self: One Thing Every Day.
The Things I’m referring to are activities I do with the girls. The idea here is that I do at least ONE THING with the girls every day – big or small – and the rest of the time they’re either on their own or asleep. :)
Small things can include:
- going to the neighborhood park or splashpad
- visiting the library
- playing a game together after dinner
- baking cookies
- doing something arty or crafty
- making sidewalk paint and making your own hopscotch grid
- enjoying a picnic lunch (a.k.a. changing the location of our regular lunch)
- going for a special bike ride (make it special by choosing a new destination)
Big things can include:
- Organizing a date with friends (meeting friends for breakfast is one of my favourite things to do)
- Going to see a movie
- Going on a roadtrip, or a hike, or both
- Going to the art gallery, the fair, the museum
- Checking out the local waterpark (Mont Cascades has totally dropped the price of admission this summer, so do yourself a favour and skip busy Calypso for now.)
- Hosting a lemonade stand
- Writing invitations and hosting a teddy bear picnic
… you get the picture. I know I’m using the word “big” pretty loosely here – all things are relative – but in a way it refers to energy expenditure. Some days I just have so little of it to go around.
Whether or not you tell your kids about your One Thing Every Day plan is up to you. I haven’t. It’s just something I have in the back of my mind. It prevents me from totally vegging out, and/or sitting in front of the computer all day and allowing the three us of to loll around the house, pyjama clad and unwashed all day long. (Although that might be fun too.)
The other day we had a picnic lunch. We didn’t even go very far from the house (in this case it was in the backyard):
… and Piper got a little something too:
Great thing about the picnic idea is that the girls were actually happy to come grocery shopping with me in preparation.
They are hilarious, and so creative. On Friday we had a movie night. To my surprise the girls took it upon themselves to design a movie poster, make tickets and organize a raffle. (!) Mark won a book that’d been lost in the basement.
The beauty of the One Thing Every Day plan is that it:
- (a) Gives kids something to look forward to.
- (b) Allows parents to say things like: “Henry, we can’t go to see the monster trucks, we’re having friends over for lunch today instead!” Because sometimes I feel like I can ONLY DO one thing.
- (c) It makes me feel like we’re doing something together as a family.
- (d) It shakes things up a little bit and makes ordinary things (like meals) a little more fun.
- (e) If I do one thing with the girls I can give myself permission to work, compose overdue emails and occasionally nap in the afternoon. :)
I don’t want to snooze my summer away, it’s just too short, you know what I mean?
