June smells like honeysuckle around here. My 15-year-old and I ran along the river the other night and the trail was just thick with it. June tastes like strawberries. Some of the kids and I will hopefully be picking them this weekend! No fresh whipped cream this year for me but oh well.
May was swift and I know June will be too; I’ll be on the road for lots of it. I am aiming to consciously relax and enjoy it. Easier said than done. But it will be a month of adventures.
Relaxing and enjoying time takes on a new dimension when you have limited amounts of it. I was thinking of this over Memorial Day weekend when I wound up with some unexpected toddler-free hours. The sitter who sometimes cares for the 2-year-old on weekends texted me on Saturday that she had availability for Sunday. The rest of the weekend featured some big family adventures (Devon Horse Show! Trip to the National Aquarium in Baltimore!) and a lot of toddler playing while my husband took big kids to movies (Maverick, etc.). So I decided I needed to use those sudden toddler-free hours to feel as relaxed as possible.
In other words: Hurry up and relax! You’ve got to relax right now because time is ticking away!
Oh, the pressure. I think I did OK, though, with my need to use those hours well. I spent an hour reading on the hammock. I played the piano. I went for a walk. I needed to do about an hour of work and household administrative stuff, so I did that. Since the big kids were around there was some interaction with them, though we mostly just let them hang out. The time sped along as it does, and then it was back to toddler duty.
He is very cute. He loved the fish at the aquarium, if getting stuck in Memorial Day traffic coming back from Baltimore made him grumpy (it made all of us grumpy). We’ve slowly been unpacking the boxes of toys that are currently in storage, and so finding new (old) ones is kind of like Christmas morning. Tinker toys! The Fisher Price dollhouse! On Sunday night we had some friends over to make s’mores after dinner, and so the toddler had his first s’more. He was really into it. Which makes sense. Because they are really good! (I had mine without the chocolate.) Maybe June tastes like s’mores and strawberries.
In other news: It has not escaped me that my handful of toddler-free weekend hours is most likely what all my weekend hours will be like in a few years. Maybe I’ll try to pick up a new hobby. Write my epic novel. I did read two books in the crevices of weekend time and am halfway through a third…
Photo: Fifth kid…everything in this photo is a hand-me-down except the shoes!
1) honeysuckle season here too, and i was thinking of you as I breathed it in on my run
2) coconut whipped cream is quite good! (have a lot of vegan family members so have tried all the subs)
@SHU – it is true that the dairy subs are a lot better now than they used to be. I was sad about ice cream until I discovered non-dairy Phish Food from B&J. So good…
Enjoy Life makes great dairy-free chocolate — as do many other brands that you can find at Whole Foods….
Have you tried whipped coconut milk? It’s not *exactly* the same but still pretty delicious.
Dark chocolate is generally dairy-free, so you could have a slightly fancier s’more! And I second (third? fourth?) the coconut milk whipped cream. Pretty good.
Sadly, non-dairy cheese lags behind. But I have faith that science will prevail in the next decade or so…
Does this mean no sixth kid on the horizon for you about your weekends being toddler free.. haha, curious if you find it harder to have a toddler and big kids or when you had your first three all very close in age?
@IfIknew- I would be 44 when that kid would be born, which seems to be getting up there a bit!
I feel like having a toddler is slightly easier this time around — I mean, I’m old and tired but I have three solid mother’s helpers living with me (two of whom are old enough to stay with the toddler for short periods of time). Having a 4-year-old, 2-year-old and a baby was pretty exhausting. And they weren’t particularly helpful then!
Really liked this part: It has not escaped me that my handful of toddler-free weekend hours is most likely what all my weekend hours will be like in a few years.
I have a 3 year old and it sometimes feels like I never get a quiet minute, but it was a good reminder that it will change again soon enough once he gets that little bit older!! Inspired me to visit a lake today with a view to getting all the kids (and us!) paddle boarding as I think we need a family outdoor hobby x
@Lauren – they do grow up! Though if you have 5 kids over 13 years it does take a while to exit the toddler stage completely…