One of the few positive side-effects of Bryan’s surgery is how absolutely clear our calendar has been over the past week. We’re sort of yes people -- lots of activities, play dates, dinners with friends… Or more accurately I’m the yes person I suppose. Honestly prior to the surgery, I don’t think I realized how busy I was keeping us. (And it really is me at the helm of this “over-committing”, as if it were up to him, Bryan would have us hanging out at home doing “nothing” pretty much every weekend.)
Perhaps I’m a little scared of having big blocks of free time at our disposal, but after a few days with minimal commitments, I’ve become a fan. We’ve read a lot more, gone on impromptu walks around the neighborhood, spent an hour just swinging and sliding on the play gym… No hustle, no racing around, just seeing what unfolds next.
It’s a pretty timely revelation -- how much I like this less scheduled, more spontaneous existence -- as with the holidays looming, the potential for me to commit us to multiple activities every. single. day. is very real. In this spirit, last night I started thinking through my plan to "simplify and really enjoy the holidays” (#35.)
I started by making a little list of the 3-5 activities I'd really like to experience as a family in December (vs. the scads of activities I think we should do…) I also pounced on Bryan’s drug induced agreeability to discuss gifts. The consensus (which frankly we would have arrived at regardless of the pain killers) was that rather than buying lots of little things for the girls this year (that they’ll just end up squabbling over), we’re going to get them one big gift to share, focused on their mutual love of playing dress-up. We're leaning toward this groovy toy chest (it’s made of sustainable wood from Russia by an ex-tv network marketing executive turned stay-at-home mom turned self-taught furniture designer/builder…Awesome!) filled with dress up clothes, hats, baubles, etc... Then we’ll just wrap a few new books and art supplies for under the tree, fill the stockings and we’re good to go.
That's the plan at least... We'll see how it goes.
