My new oven is being installed as I am writing this, which is quite exciting. We’re going to be doing make-your-own-pizza night on Friday instead of ordering in. I think we’ll celebrate with muffins tonight. We shall see!
The weekend was reasonably full but still featured some downtime. As in, people zoned out on screens for plenty of hours. Gobs of hours.
Yet still, everyone got to do something not-on-a-personal-device that they enjoyed. My husband and the 14-year-old went to see Batman (that is a screen, to be sure, but is a somewhat different experience). My husband went to the gym and went skiing with the 7-year-old, who also got to go to a birthday party. The 12-year-old did tech crew for 3 productions of his musical and went to the cast party. My daughter went to see the 12-year-old’s show twice (she likes musicals!). She had been somewhat reluctant about going to the Brandywine River Museum of Art to see the Wayne Thiebaud exhibit, and to Longwood Gardens for the orchids, but she decided to go with me (and the toddler) and she had a really good time. Plus she said she enjoyed the Philadelphia Auto Show, which we all went to on Sunday, and the stop at Rita’s after. Yep, Rita’s Water Ice is now open for the season! Plus it was 65 degrees. I played outside with the toddler for an hour or so late Sunday afternoon and it really felt like spring. And next weekend we’ll get an hour more of light into the evening!
There were plenty of frustrations as well. It is somewhat insane how much children can fight in a car. Anything can and will become a weapon. The 7-year-old wanders off in crowded places like the Auto Show with a confidence I wish I could copy. I guess he just assumes someone will follow? Also, the 2-year-old is in a fun phase when he doesn’t want his diaper changed. It’s like, trust me child, I don’t really want to change it either, so it’s not helping matters to kick me simultaneously. Of course, he has his sweet moments. I’m still nursing and he reported to me the other night that “I like mommy milk. It’s beautiful.” Then he gave me a little motivational pat.
Now on to figure out which muffins to make…
Photo: From the Wayne Thiebaud exhibit. Now that I have an oven I could bake such pies…
Sounds like a good weekend! I’m curious how you find and track things to do locally? I find it hard to constantly check websites of various venues around town on the chance they have something cool going on. Any strategies for how you go about this would be helpful! Thanks!
@Dee- good question! (And probably a good subject for a post). Some stuff just comes up every year — I have to remind myself that we enjoyed it in the past but since we’ve lived here for 10.5 years now there’s a lot of wins from the past that can be revisited (and, of course, things we didn’t enjoy as much that we just don’t do again). As for new things, I have something of a running list of ideas (just a list in a notebook) and if there’s something that’s got a specific date to it, then I put it on my calendar as a potential item for that time (or if I need to get tickets during a certain window I’ll put it then). There’s something of a seasonality to this. In September/October and April/May we tend to have a lot of weekend sports so we’re not really hunting for stuff to do. Whereas in January we are. So if there’s stuff that can go at any time, putting it in the winter is a better idea.
“The weekend was reasonably full but still featured some downtime. As in, people zoned out on screens for plenty of hours. Gobs of hours.” Because of snow days it feels like my kids basically never attend school anymore (sigh) and gobs of hours of screens is exactly how I would describe like lately – even though we also fill gobs of hours reading and playing outside. There are just gobs and gobs and GOBS of hours to fill.
Too cute about Henry’s comment; a 2-year old saying the word beautiful is pretty adorable in itself! And couldn’t we all use some more motivational pats from our kiddos?!
@Elisabeth – yep, there are just a lot of hours. Weekends have tons of hours. My 12-year-old, for instance, was doing tech for 3 runs of his musical, so he was at school from 5:30-9 on Friday and from 12:30-9 on Saturday. He also went to church on Sunday morning (10-11) and with us to the car show (about 12:30-3:30). That seems like a lot but alert readers might be able to calculate that 9-11 was screen time on Friday, 9-12 or so on Saturday morning, probably 10-11 Saturday night, and then 3:30-9 with a stop for dinner on Sunday. It is just a LOT. Because there are a lot of hours.
That does sound like a delightful weekend! I stopped nursing at 18 months and my very verbal child stared longingly at a mum nursing her baby and then when she said hello to him, said mournfully “my mummy, no more milk!”
He’s nearly 5 now, and he’s very encouraging, I think mimicking what we do. If I’m struggling with something, he chants “mumma can do it, mumma can do it!” and if I do something for him, he’ll stroke my shoulder and say “that was very kind of you!”