reclaiming sundays... carefree and clothes free

Sometimes life feels like a runaway train and it takes everything from within to make a stand for slowing things down.

Raising kids is like that.

Regardless of jobs and deadlines and finances and responsibilities, just being a parent seems to propel life into fast forward. With each new milestone, developmental leap, and growth spurt the passing of time is amplified.

And so is the challenge of slowing things down, which is why I'm thrilled to say that our last few Sundays have looked a lot like this:

Sun, grass, a cheap wading pool, a garden hose, tall glasses of ice water, thrown together plates of cheese and cracker snacks, sticky, juicy orange slices, lounge chairs, sunscreen, floppy hats, a well-loved swing set, and sweet, mellow playlists providing the perfect soundtrack to the unfolding joy.

They have been lazy; they have been perfect.

No one straining to finish a project. No one sweating to cross things off the list. No one stressing to get one last errand in before the shops close.

Just resting, refreshing, relishing, enjoying.

But one of the best things about this time--these days--of our lives is this:

Little boys with bare naked bums.

I know if I'm not careful I'll blink and Levi will be too grown-up to run around the backyard naked without a care in the world.

So for now, we're savoring these days. Carefree and clothes free.

Life is good.

Dear friends, what are you savoring these days?


love,

ANNOUNCEMENTS

Are you pregnant? Link up with the Bloggin' Babes and Babies of 2011.

Share your creativity and Easter inspiration by submitting your Easter card to our Easter card linky (closing April 21).

This post is part of my Reclaiming Sundays project - an intentional effort to carve out family time every week to rest, refresh, breathe, laugh, relax, enjoy... Please feel free to join me if you'd like.

adriel booker | the mommyhood memos | 2011
do not reproduce without written permission

unearthing joy with a garden hose, a kiddie pool, and a rusty old swing set

Do you ever have those moments where you feel like you're catching a glimpse of your life on a movie and you think to yourself "Wow, I really am a grown-up now!" or even just a simple "Oh my gosh, I'm a MOM and this is my family!"?

I had one of those moments the other day as we were Reclaiming Sunday.

It was a rare day of sunshine and blue skies smack dab in the middle of monsoon season and to maximize it we decided that instead of going out to a park or the beach we would slather on sunscreen, gather up our beach towels, and head out our back door.

Oh, it was glorious.

We pulled out the small, brittle plastic wading pool that we got from Freecycle and let Levi fill it with cool hose water. Ryan put up our "new" swing set (another Freecycle score) and attached the shiny, new toddler swing that Levi got for his birthday. Buckets and shovels and balls scattered across the surface of the yard. I reclined in a lounge chair under the frangipani tree eating grapes and feeling like the luckiest woman on the planet. Levi ran loose, buzzing between the pool and the swing set, the dirt patch and my lounge chair. Friends dropped in and stayed for a cool drink and to watch the unfolding show as Levi learned how the hose worked and stumbled gleefully through the sprinkler. Ryan got his BBQ groove on.

We laughed. We relished. We relaxed. We soaked it all in.

Yes, it was glorious. One of those days that is so simple, so unpretentious, so "normal", and so perfect.

One of those days that goes down in my little mental record book titled "Best Days Ever".

We got to the end of it wishing we could rewind and do it all again.

Not every day off is so Norman Rockwell - our lives are not perfect - and yet it's days like these that somehow make their way into shaping both ideals and memories of what family time is all about. It's days like these that prove how easy it is to find joy in the simple things... if only you take the time to slow down and look for it.

Dear friends, what are you doing to create some family time or good memories this week? What are you doing to unearth some joy in your life?

for the love of a sprinkler,

This post is part of my Reclaiming Sundays project - an intentional effort to carve out family time every week to rest, refresh, breathe, enjoy, laugh, relax... 

adriel booker | the mommyhood memos | 2011

do not reproduce without written permission

reclaiming sundays

New Years resolutions. Some love ‘em. Some hate ‘em. Some are diligent to follow through. Many start with great ideas that never make it past a list scrawled out in a journal or on the fridge.

I didn’t make any resolutions this year (apart from a few blogging goals, which—let’s be honest—I’ve yet to even come close to implementing most of them).

But I did have one thing in particular on my heart and mind for this year… a change I wanted to make…

You see… life. is. busy.

We all know that.

Time is perhaps our most precious commodity. How we spend it, how we invest it, and how we squander it will define not only our present, but our future.

I’m tired of having days—even entire weeks—where I get to the end and think what in the world did I do with my time?

It’s all too easy to let life rule me and lead me, rather than me leading life the way I want it to go.

Yes, I am trying to be more organized and accomplish certain short-term goals… but what I’m really talking about here is the quality time I want to spend living life, enjoying life.

I’m pretty sure no one gets to the end of their days only to think, “I wish I had kept a better-organized pantry!”

So I’ve tried to be deliberate, to take advantage of my (mostly) fluid schedule. Instead of getting caught up in the business of taking care of a baby and taking care of a home, finances, part-time work responsibilities, ministry, etc. (these are all good things, mind you), I’ve tried to be intentional about also having fun with my son. You know, impromptu trips to the park, a quick play in a sink filled with bubbles, dumping a million blocks on the floor to see what we can create, or sitting down in the middle of the kitchen with him to bang on pots and pans to see what kind of noise we can create.

In fact, even at one point while writing this post Levi came up to me and started bouncing up and down near my feet. He had a wooden puzzle in his hand that he was obviously dying for me to get down on the floor and help him with. So I did.

It’s not about catering to our children’s every whim. It’s about paying attention to them, letting them remind us to be present, and remembering that they are individuals who are constantly learning, perceiving, and even forming judgments of their own (including sizing up what they deem as mama’s priorities).

I don’t want to be at the point of sending Levi off to school in a few years time and look back and wish I had spent the early days with him differently.

So I’m trying. Not always succeeding the way I’d like to, but trying nonetheless.

No doubt you can relate.

But this isn’t just about being a parent and having quality time with my kids.

It’s even bigger than that. It’s about having quality time with my husband, quality time with friends, quality time for myself, quality time set apart for God.

I’m aware, more and more, that we’re living on borrowed time.

I don’t want to look back on my life and think that I squandered the time I was given. But the sad truth for most of us is that a lack of being deliberate leads us into a slow and steady process of waste... wasted time.

And wasted time leads to a wasted life.

So my goal for this year is to reclaim Sundays in hopes that will help bring me more focus on spending my precious time well.

There is nothing magical about Sundays. In my opinion the day itself is not holy any more than a Tuesday or a Friday is. Every day is holy if only we’d treat it as such.

But like most families we have weekends off from work. Saturdays tend to be quickly filled up with chores, errands, and house/yard projects. And so that leaves Sundays – the only day of the week that we can really stop. Rest. Reflect. Recharge.

So this year I want to reclaim Sundays. I want to wake up Monday morning feeling like I’m starting my work week from a good place, from a better place.

It’s not a religious thing, although God himself understands the value of Sabbath rest for busy, hard-working people and has gone so far as commanding his followers to observe it (ie: rest, pray, play, refuel, reconnect).

But it’s more than “just” religion.

Rest, recreation, refreshing, recharging, relationships… these are as important as the air we breathe and the food that sustains us. All of it is absolutely crucial to living a healthy and balanced life… a good life.

So {dramatic pause} I want to make Sundays – whether it is the entire day or part of the day – a day that I know I can look forward to because it is one where we will deliberately draw aside from our “to do’s” in order to really enjoy life… do things that refresh us and recharge us, excite us and connect us. I want Sundays to be a day in our home that the entire family looks forward to because it means something fun is about to happen… even if that something fun is an intentional “nothing” from time to time. I want it to be a day that we are calculated about pausing the busyness in order to enjoy relationships, create memories, and focus on the things that help grow joy in hearts and homes.

I have decided that part of holding myself accountable to being deliberate about this goal will be me posting a photo or a thought or a recount of Sundays (or Saturdays or whatever day worked out for us to be “Sunday” for the week) on the Memos. I may not perfectly succeed, and I’m okay with that, but I am determined to try. I am determined to do better.

For my own sake. My for my husband’s sake. For our children’s sake.

Dear friends, please feel free to join me on my endeavor to reclaim Sundays. I’m doing this for myself, for my family, for my friends… But no doubt other blogging mamas out there could benefit from reclaiming Sundays too. I don’t want to just create another meme for the sake of gaining blog followers (*blech* I don’t have time for stuff like that anyway). But I suspect I’m not alone in my desire. If that’s you, if you want to try and reclaim Sundays too, link up with me next week and share about your own “Sunday” or special family time. (I'll have a grab button and linky open next week if you're interested in joining.) I challenge you to carve out time, be deliberate about living, and record the journey for your family’s sake and for your own.

reclaiming sundays,

P.S. It's Sunday here... and we went to the beach today..........Our day included fish and chips. And ice cream. But... more about that later. *happysighofcontentment*

adriel booker | the mommyhood memos | 2011 
do not reproduce without written permission