I’m trying to be more deliberate with how my days are spent.
That’s not to say that I’m not already thoughtful and intentional in my day-to-day. I’m very goals oriented, and most days start with a fairly ambitious to-do list dedicated to enhancing my career, our home, generally staying on top of life’s assorted stuff.
What I’m talking about is how my days are planned in terms of the kids. With minimal childcare support this week and a pretty aggressive client schedule, I need real naps in order to bang out productive work. I also have found that there’s really no point in me trying to work when the kids are awake; they sense my desire to get work done and shift into needy-mode when they’re normally quite independent and self-entertaining. Like dogs sense fear, kids can sense distractedness, and capitalize on it to turn into a-holes and make sure you know that it is your fault they’re behaving so poorly.
Not today, guys.
Last night, I sat down and wrote my intentions for the week and for my Monday in particular. Rather than “hope to come up with fun things to do” or cross my fingers for a day when the kids feel particularly independent, I decided that today, I would do something with Anson and Maddox that we had never done before.
That something ended up being a trip to the Walla Walla Children’s Museum.
We weren’t there more than 2 minutes before Anson announced, “This place is AWESOME!” as he gleefully slid down their indoor slide, and thus began two full, blissful, smiles-on-their-faces hours of family magic.
There is indoor fun to be experienced AND outdoor fun to be explored.
Each room in the building has a different theme or make-believe set up, including a veterinarian’s office, a modern-day kitchen, and an apple orchard and garden. In one of the larger rooms, there is a climbing wall that you have to scale in order to access the slide, as well as a magnetic wall to build gravity tests on, a glow-in-the-dark room with glow sticks you can jam in the wall to make all kinds of cool designs, an art station, an entire bin full of dinosaurs, and a wind machine. The other large room has a fishing pond and damn, and a mini-construction site complete with sand and water to create your own rivers.
Outside, a vintage fire truck from the Milton-Freewater department sits for children to climb all over, inside and out. There’s also a large boat with a crab pot off the side, a gravel pit with a slide and picnic tables, a make-believe lemonade stand, assorted tractors, a giant teepee…
I mean, is this HEAVEN?
Puzzles. Books. Activity walls.
My two little explorers had such a blast, and so did I. All because I made sure to block out two hours of planned fun on the calendar. Because I was able to be 100% focused and present with Anson and Maddox then, they ate great lunches and took legit naps later and were pretty awesome for us all afternoon, as well.
Sometimes, my idea of “fun” and “treats” doesn’t really line up with what my kids get excited about. Sometimes, I really turn on the Mom-Energy and try to fun-up a situation that isn’t all that enticing to start with (ahem, grocery shopping or cleaning up the kitchen). And sometimes, you’re all out of fun and so are the kids and that’s okay too. We gotta live with not-fun from time to time.
But planning on doing something new today with the kids (knowing that it would be fun, to boot) was my win for the day, and the fact that it wasn’t spontaneous but was in fact WRITTEN DOWN IN MY PLANNER makes it feel even better. We don’t always have a magical spark of creativity to turn the mundane Monday into a highlight of the summer, so knowing that by being a little intentional about how I looked at my day today had such an enchanting outcome is very encouraging for me as I look to the future with three to entertain.
Tuning in with the kids today was also rewarding on so many levels. I got to see Anson and Maddox engage in really imaginative play without any fighting over toys or spots or attention. I got to pretend to haul in giant fish off the side of a boat, be a master chef orchestrating a wonderful meal, play ER doctor to an ailing beaver with a huge red scratch, build funnels out of magnetic half-pipes, and write Maddox’s name in glow-in-the-dark sticks. I got to witness Maddox’s love for animals in multiple settings: the thoughtful way she loaded three rubber duckies into a small boat in the outside water station, and the strangle-hold neck hug she gave a stuffed St. Bernard in the vets office (“Ohhhh puppy” she said as she embraced it. “LOVE.”).
And when it was time to go, the kids reluctantly climbed in the car and fought to stay awake for the 10 minute drive home, gushing the whole way back about all the fun they’d had in that jam-packed two hours.
I’m planning on planning more trips to the Children’s Museum in the future, for sure. But even bigger than that, I want to be more intentional in putting fun on the schedule from now on.
How can you put fun on the schedule in your own life?
Anson's Antics 