Monday, July 27, 2015

Bringing Vacation Home

I know the title is stupid, but bear with me...I've got thoughts to share. We've been on several vacations this year, and most were pleasant and relaxing (as they should be!). Our last trip wasn't quite as much fun, but it had its moments. The best part was the 4 days we had afterwards when B stayed behind with MIL and we had just L at home. It was so refreshing! We went to work but it was like a staycation in many ways. We didn't really cook, we went out the park in the evening, had ice cream, hung out with neighbors, and generally had a stress-free time. L is just a much more easy-going, up-for-anything kid than his brother who is...intense. I mean, Saturday we took L to the hardware store and he had a BLAST running up and down the aisles "what is this? Ooh, when I grow up can I use drill bits? Why do we never buy PVC piping? Can you buy me some one day? Is daddy going to use galvanized screws to build something? Will it be for ME? Can I help?". He was game for several other errands after that, too, just chatted to himself in the carseat, tried to "help" in the stores, grabbing things and running them over to the person with the cart, and then falling asleep on the way home. There was 99% less whining and 100% less sulking, "I'm bored" and general sighing and grunting going on. I'm sure part of his great behavior was getting both of our full attention, and the fact that we tried pretty hard to make it fun & special for him, since he was missing out on MAJOR spoiling by grandmother and did miss his brother (the cutest thing ever was when they "talked" to each other on the phone. omg.)

The good thing about taking a break for the everyday is the perspective it brings. When I'm in the midst of it, I just can't see it. Stepping back made me realize how exhausting and un-fun our routine can be for all of us. The activities, the to-dos, the careful counting of every penny we spend, calorie we (I) eat, etc... Its a whole lot of "shoulds" and "can't"s and it can be demoralizing after a while.  I've been thinking about is how to incorporate more of the relaxed, vacation-feeling into our everyday lives. Its difficult, because the choices we made for our everyday lives were not made on a whim but firmly based on values and priorities we've thought through---changing those things would end up compromising or changing some of those priorities. But maybe we do need to shake things up.

1) Food. For the love of god, the food procuring, making, eating, cleaning up after. We know its better for our budget and our health to make food from home for most meals. We have systems down, we are efficient, but it still takes a lot of time & physical/mental energy to keep all of us fed with "growing food" for the minors and "no-growing food" for the adults in the family! Add the calorie counting and recording I was doing and food took up a large portion of my mental space. It goes directly against our financial and health goals, but eating out more often would relieve a HUGE burden. I'm not sure how to reconcile this---I know families that eat out all weekend and then do home cooked food all week, and vice versa. Maybe we can just plan to take a "food vacation" once every couple of months, get take-out and cafeteria lunches & come back refreshed? The kids OFTEN ask to go to the park or library in the evening and we can't because we have to figure out dinner & get them fed before bedtime and I HATE that. Yes, even simple meals take time to get on the table and into picky mouths.  Once in a while we've gone to the park and just gotten deli sandwiches nearby and its amazing. Maybe doing that once or twice a week?

2) Activities. B is doing karate twice a week, after school and sometimes also on Saturday AM. Initially it was a GOOD thing, to get us out of our go to school/work-come home routine in the winter, but now its another tiring to-do. We're always running late and rushing and then coming home late & tired and hungry (well, I am anyways, B eats a small meal before). Also, we initially planned for B to eat dinner before but now he's eating TWO dinners, so it saves no time at all, and by the time he gets home & has dinner, its bedtime & he never fails to have a tantrum because he "didn't get time to play". We are signed up (and pre-paid) through September but aren't going to renew (it won't be convenient from his KG, anyways) and I've decided to limit activities in the warm months & ramp them up in the cold months (opposite of what I used to do, since it was so hard to get toddlers dressed to go out in the winter).

3) Weekends. We do a lot on the weekends. I'm always finding and planning activities for us to do because I go a little nuts staying at home.  These things are ostensibly fun, but of course, fun with small kids is also tiring and then at the end of it all there is very little unstructured time for the boys to play together or make up games. I know unstructured play is important and good for kids (and my kids are asking for it more, by refusing to go out or, worse, refusing to go to bed!), and especially after B starts "real school" and aftercare, I want to make sure they have enough of it in their weekends. Not sure how to schedule this---one day each weekend to stay home? Half a day? One weekend a month? Or most likely just play it by ear and see what the kids (and us) seem to need.

4) The "shoulds". This is my issue. I just can't relax until everything is done, and there is always something to be done! Its hard for me to just sit and watch the kids play (or play with them) for more than a few minutes, or even just do something for myself unless I've planned it out or am too exhausted to be productive. I'm constantly working on this problem, and I've gotten WAY better, but even though I am sitting or playing with the kids in body, my mind is often elsewhere. My brain just runs through the list and calendar I keep in my head (they are copies of the actual ones I keep, I DO write things down!)---home, work, kids, dog, others---making sure I haven't forgotten to buy a wedding present or schedule a dentist appointment (two things I need to do today!) I just need some of G's attitude, where he can stop in the middle of whatever to have a beer and build a lego castle (usually while I give him the stink eye because DUDE you didn't finish the dishes!), to rub off on me.

5) Time. I am so anal about bedtime and mealtimes. I need to let it go, at least on the weekends. The boys aren't babies anymore, sometimes when they stay up late, they sleep in! Or they nap the next day or go to bed earlier. I feel like I am constantly watching the clock planning the next thing that needs to happen (this ties in a LOT to #1, 2 and 3. Oh and #4, too). Are we going to the park? When did they last eat. Must pack snacks and drinks. When did they last use the bathroom? Uh oh, L is due to "go" soon, better wait til that happens. OK its 5 pm. If I start dinner now, it'll be ready, they can eat and then play and then have time for bath and stories. Or maybe I should just give them a bath. Or wait, are we having pasta? No, they'll need to bathe after that. Whose turn for stories tonight---G? He will read the long book so we actually have to start stories earlier. So if I start dinner, G needs to do the dog walk. And go pick up xyz from the store. Commence nagging G to stop playing legos (we really likes playing legos) and take dog on walk. Etc...

6) (last one I promise) One on one time. Again, we started doing a lot of this when B first started karate. We took turns taking him on Saturday AM and then spending most of the day with him while the other one hung out with L. It was fun to do new things with the kids and also to reconnect at the end of the day. Not sure how that ended, but it did and I'd like to re-instate that. (and maybe engineer more opportunities for one or the other to stay with grandma again! it was great! but probably won't happen until next summer, since B starts KG).

I wrote this down so I won't forget, and we'll see how it goes!

14 comments:

  1. Wow, your #5 is what's running through my head at all times! No solutions, but you have my sympathies! Glad to hear up had such a nice time with 1 kiddo.

    And yes food - making, cleaning up, eating, getting little people to eat. So much time!

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  2. I also find planning/cooking/cleaning up from food to be stressful and time consuming, despite the fact that I 1) have no children and 2) love cooking (as does my girlfriend). We do try to eat at home as much as possible, because *crippling student debt*, but we do allow ourselves some meals out as well.

    For us, we find that the best way to balance our desire to eat out with the necessity of spending a lot less than we earn is to plan our eating out in advance. This allows us to enjoy the anticipation of a meal out and to eat at restaurants that don't break the bank (mostly family-run ethnic restaurants). We've also accepted that not all of our at-home meals are going to be wonderful; my lunch today, for example, was two freezer burnt tamales that I dug out of the ice at the back of my freezer. Not particularly tasty, but cheap and something that needed to be eaten.

    I would love to read a post about your current cooking/eating habits (mostly because I am obsessed with food, but also because I like to hear about how busy families make it work).

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    1. You're in luck, I am definitely writing such a post in the next couple of weeks. I used to love cooking, now its definitely a chore, my energies are better spent elsewhere. Yeah, we never eat out at the spur of the moment, but its starting to feel tempting to have that option on really hectic evenings.

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    2. Do you keep something quick (like a frozen pizza) for emergencies? I have a few go-to meals (eggs, beans and toast) that I eat on the crazy nights. And sometimes I eat takeout without planning to, if I'm being honest. We're all human.

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  3. A-freaking-men on the stress of planning, cooking, bedtimes, activities, food, money, calories ALL THE FREAKING TIME. I hate to say it, but one of the best things about residency is that I literally can't, and just have to let it go. Sometimes just being at work all the time is just easier, not that I would recommend that as a long term solution.

    Love the idea of unstructured time. Sometimes you just have to get out of the house, but sometimes it's nice to chill while the kid plays with her dinosaurs.

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    1. Exactly. Chilling on the sofa reading a book while the kids play with dinosaurs or whatnot is the awesome awesome perk of not having a toddler anymore. sure they will start beating each other within 5-10 minutes and I will intervene, but 10 minutes is something.

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  4. OMG. I wrote an enormously long comment that just got eaten, twice. the gist:

    1) I am PRO eating out/restaurants/takeout especially when the kids are young. 100% worth it to me.

    2) PRO unstructured time too!! Or, planning in unstructured time (i.e., playground for a few hours on the weekend. It' s a plan, but the kids are really just having open playtime.) The book I am reading is big on this!

    3) YES on the incessant planning/time obsession. I am really working hard to let go of mine, too. I tend to sometimes act like the entire day is one elaborate dance leading up to bedtime, and it's like -- missing the whole point. Might as well relax into the moment and the SEASON (I know, cheesy, but yeah) because this is life. Agree that men are much better at this in general :)

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    1. Ideas for healthy take out? We generally go for pizza that we can all have or Thai food for the adults, neither of which are particularly healthy (We eat pizza maybe 1-2 times/month and that is enough for me...more seems excessive and would get old). G likes sushi but its SO EXPENSIVE, I want to save that for actually going out!

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    2. Do you have a Trader Joes or Whole Foods or similar that you could get some prepared meals that just need heating in the microwave?

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  5. Oh #4, yes, yes, yes. Mrs. Gamgee said something similar on a recent post of mine in the comment section and it resonated with me. I also can't sit down and relax until I know all the shoulds are done. But other people clearly don't have a problem with this. They make time for the relaxation along with the shoulds. So why can't I?

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  6. I am SO anal about the timing of everything...I really struggle with this so I completely relate to your #5. I have no solution but just wanted to say that I could relate!

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  7. I don't have much to contribute here, but yup, I relate to much of this. Dinner causes more stress than it shoud; for me i realized if I enforce the kids-help-clean I'm much happier. I also live my life around bedtime; today we didn't go to a kid's concert because Tiny Boy didn't nap. While the experience would have been nice, the consequence just too big. And I know some folks like LV talk about the 'experiencing self' vs the remembering self (or something like that) but I have to say if I'm stressed out as a result of the experience, THAT'S my long term memory of it.

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  8. I am so like you in sooo many ways, especially about the wanting to go out and do on the weekends and realizing my kids actually want to stay home and play. I'm finding that during the summer just an hour in our backyard is enough for me to feel like I've been "out" (and I feel productive because I can get a little weeding in) and the kids feel like they're getting their play time. That has been so helpful, especially in the afternoons.

    I am also always watching the clock like a hawk, but mostly because I know that bedtime with my daughter will take longer than should be humanly possible and I'll only get a few hours at the end of the night to get stuff done and do stuff I want and I'll need to get to bed so I just want to make sure I start everything early enough so the dominos fall in the right place at the right time and I'm not walking out of my daughter's room at 10:30pm with no time for myself. It's a lot easier right now, when I see my daughter so much more because I don't need to give her so much of myself right before bed, but it's still tough because I'm used to (and she's used to) me giving her so much of myself before bed so it ends up happening anyway.

    I soooooo feel you on the being overtaken by the "shoulds" in life. I feel like they are the tyrants of every day and it's exhausting and I struggle to push down the resentment. I keep thinking that if I do it long enough it will become a habit and I won't feel that exhaustion or resentment anymore, but that hasn't happened yet. At least not in the ways I thought it would.

    Isn't it amazing how once you have two kids, just having one around feels like a vacation?! Why didn't having one kid ever feel that easy when we only had one kid?! So fucking unfair.

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