A Good Day

Yesterday was a good day.

The danger in being too busy, particularly in conjunction with several young children, is the danger to a marriage. Especially in these young-baby days, when Baby often stays up till Mom and Dad go to bed, you lose the time to focus on each other. Babysitting helps, but we tend to use up babysitting dollars on studio recital and errand running and weddings (the ones we play, I mean). And pretty soon we discover that we feel less like friends and lovers, and more like business partners whose responsibility is to help each other raise kids.

This is something that Christian and I have been trying to address again recently. (It’s cyclical…or shall we say chronic?) So this week, while he’s been on vacation, we’ve taken some time together. Sit on the swing. Sit on the deck after dark. (Didn’t have margaritas, unfortunately, but ah well. 🙂 ) Go out to lunch. No errands allowed!…

Uh, well, we did run an errand (sheepish face). But we ran it at Menard’s, which was much more fun than usual. We picked up our two electrical plates and then wandered around the store for forty-five minutes. We had all the fun of shopping for the house without actually buying anything… But with the satisfaction of knowing that in a few weeks we will get to come back and actually make purchases.

Nicholas was very cooperative during our mini-date. He slept the whole time. (Which was good, because he actually melted down yesterday morning. I think he just got too tired, and that last sibling hug turned out to be just one too many!)

When we came home, we lounged across the bed looking at approximately three thousand paint chips, collected over the last few years. We came up with color schemes for the rest of the main floor of the house. Then naptime was over, and Christian took Alex outside to play T ball—it was a wonderfully cool day—and I got the little ones up and took them down to the back yard, where we all sat on the swing for a while, playing rocket ship and crystal-collecting-on-the-moon. (It was a great game, b/c all Christian and I had to do was narrate from the swing while Alex ran off energy!)

When we got tired of that, Alex and I went to look at the wild blackberry bushes behind the compost bin, which are absolutely bursting with baby berries. I won’t even have to brave the poison ivy in the woods to pick them this year. Then the mail came, including Alex’s wallpaper border. So we hung the first strip before heading over to church for the parish social. And that, too, was enjoyable.

Simple things. Nothing profound, except in recognizing that the simplest pleasures are the greatest gifts.