This year, more than any other year in recent memory, I've been VERY cognizant of the passage of time. I am chalking that up to some combination of turning 40 this year (SO. MANY. THOUGHTS.), how not well the adoption thing is going, and Sam starting kindergarten in the fall, thus possibly ending my decade of being a stay at home Mom (a thought that still almost brings me to tears...and I turn 40 just a few weeks before he starts kindergarten...it feels safe to say I will be doing a good bit of crying those weeks).
I've just been super aware lately of how fast our boys are growing and fleeting these years of them needing us to this extent are. We might be able to start leaving them home alone soon! Sports have crashed into our lives! And, as Luke likes to tell us, he's only 8 years away from graduating high school (HOLD ME).
Last year I realized that I wanted to PACK these years full of family adventures and memories. Our house has plenty of things and we decided to cut back the gift budgets a bit and instead allocate more of that towards family trips and making memories. Sure, some of those are basically free (we all have bikes so a bike ride downtown is fun, memory making and, other than some routine maintenance, basically free, besides the ice cream purchases). We want them to look back fondly on a variety of family adventures and memories, and not just the nights we fought over homework and tried to get them to bed early.
In that train of thought, I keep thinking of a few books I've read over the last few years and how they would make an interesting book flight on this topic. None of which happen to be straight parenting books, strangely.
The first is one I have thought about SO MANY TIMES since I read it a few years ago: Joyful: The Surprising Power of Ordinary Things to Create Extraordinary Happiness by Ingrid Fetell Lee. The author researched and wrote about a variety of ways we can bring joy into our lives, from little outings to more bright colors, and even to SPARKLE. (I wrote a post about the book here!). I might be the one in my house most on board with more SPARKLE but also as the person who keeps the house, I have a great deal of influence of how our home looks and feels. I can be sneaky in getting some more joy around here, in ways maybe the rest might only notice subconsciously. I want my kids to look back on their childhood as a joyful time (besides homework) and to really make an effort to infuse our every day lives with more. Life isn't all big adventures or even small ones. Just how our home feels can make a big difference.
The next book is another I have also thought about SO MANY TIMES since I read it and that is The Power of Moments by Chip Heath and Dan Heath. Just like in Joyful, little touches and moments can have such a big impact without a lot of work. There is an example in this one of a pretty nondescript hotel somewhere (Florida?) where they will deliver popsicles to you on call. Like, sitting by the pool, pickup the phone, and someone brings you a popsicle. It might even just be limited to the pool area, but I can tell you, my kids would be THRILLED with this. And even at a box or two of popsicles a day, this isn't a huge expenditure but makes a big impact. I didn't even experience it, just read about it, and I'm STILL thinking about this fairly regularly years later. (This one also got a post, here)
Next, one that informed my word of the year last year and that is The Power of Fun: How to Feel Alive Again by Catherine Price. She writes about how adults just don't have much fun. Like true, fully in the zone, laughing out loud, fun. Kids have that sense of play that they slowly lose as responsibilities kick in as they grow leading to a whole lot of adults that don't have "fun". Reading it I realized that some of my biggest hobbies (largely reading but also doing puzzles) don't really count as fun by her definition. Enjoyable, of course, but they don't often make me laugh or give much sense of community with another. There is certainly more FUN we could infuse into our daily lives, especially on breaks because nothing about homework has ever been fun here (It's post is here.)
Finally, the most recent of these reads, Tranquility by Tuesday by Laura Vanderkam, which I just read earlier this year (it's post is here). I've read all of Laura Vanderkam's time management books but this was something different. This wasn't about just trying to get more done, productivity wise, but trying to get more memorable things in your life. Yes, we all need to be productive to some extent but there also needs to be room for all those fun, memorable, and joyful things that really make up a fulfilling life. Not everything in this one was about fun (one of her rules is to "move by 3pm" every day) but having a well rounded life that supports adventures and well-thought out productivity so you have space for more of the fun stuff (and not phone scrolling or tv watching "fun" necessarily). Like all her books, she makes it seem doable but breaking it up into her 9 rules. I may not do them all yet but I do think frequently about her weekly big and small adventures and how we could incorporate more of those into our lives!
Thinking through these books and writing about what has stuck with me years later, really made me think more about how little changes and a bit of planning ahead can really have an impact on our lives. The bathroom still needs cleaned, meals prepared, school runs done, but outside of all of that, there is time to be spent with the people we love, doing worthwhile activities that don't involve staring at a screen. I think it's about time I reread the ones I haven't read recently because my boys are certainly at different life stages than they were a few years ago. And thinking ahead to the next few years, I really want them to leave our care as responsible and good humans, but also stuffed with memories that we made together.
This all will take some work and I am definitely more prone to the path of less resistance and "why bother?" but I know that it does matter, in the long run and in how much enjoyment we just have in our day to day lives. This isn't just a slog until they turn 18 but precious years to spend with them. I want them to be fun, memorable, joyful and with some tranquility. I'm working towards that.
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