Finding Balance

This week the Sloths are starting to find some new balance to life. From Sunday celebrations, to the home, to preparing for the arrival of the new little sloth and even to a new/first school year.

First, let me explain Sundays. A few weeks ago Mr. Sloth and I hit a wall one Sunday afternoon. I believe my real breakdown was when after a day of whiny kids at Mass, whiny kids all day and short naps, I was trying to make a taco dinner (on the Fourth of July) and I had 6 people in the kitchen with me. (Two of whom were less than cordial.) I had had it! I was done, sick of Sundays! What were we doing wrong? Isn't this supposed to be a day of rest?? Mr. Sloth agreed; our Sundays were miserable from the moment we woke up. We had a messy home, we were living on top of each other whiny kids and felt anything but rested. I went to my good ole home school group for answers. As it turns out we aren't the only family with this struggle, but the good news is we found some suggestions that work and/or are least worth trying. Many explained that Sundays with little ones are always going to be work and it's just where we are in our lives right now. So here are some of our new changes.

Since the messy house bothers us so much and we live in a cramped space we can't just let it go, but we don't have to clean all day. If we clean Saturday night and once or twice on Sundays there shouldn't be too much work.

Secondly, even though we love to cook, cooking makes a mess so we need to simplify (Sadly).

Third, we need to just relax and have fun, mess or no mess.

A few weeks ago was our first attempt at a new approach to Sundays. As usual I had everyones clothes ready for Church the night before. I prepared a french toast bake the night before and it ready to put in the oven by morning. We're not fans of casseroles but if it gives us some peace it might be worth it. We also decided that while many families go very formal on Sundays this exhausted young family is going very informal on Sundays. Disposable everything; cups, plates, silverware... I had also prepared a crock pot meal (again we don't usually like them but we're desperate for peace) of beef-stroganoff before we left for Mass so it would be done for dinner.

The next step was relaxation. Our problem is that both Mr. Sloth and myself want to rest but the children make this nearly impossible and they are, for some reason, always whiny and clingy on Sundays. So how could we entertain the children and relax???? You may have guessed; Television. We decided to get a special movie for the kids and make popcorn this way Mr. Sloth and myself could at least rest on the couch for the afternoon.

For the most part our plans worked. The kids loved the novelty of movie and popcorn with Mom and Dad and we loved the rest and ease of everything. It was definitely a much better Sunday over all even though the food was just so-so, but I'm working on that...

Today was another attempt at a happy-restful Sunday. Without doing much preparation and considering I hadn't prepped clothes the night before and Mr. Sloth and I both slept in... things went pretty well. We've started to ween Happy off of his Masstime nap while trying the technique of not letting a child touch the floor of the Church until they are two or three years old, and he's getting much more tolerable. Before if he was awake he was running, but now Mr. Sloth holds him the whole time and today was the first day he didn't fuss. Keeping him awake is crucial to our restful Sundays because if he naps at Church he doesn't nap later which means WE don't nap later. Demand wasn't her best at Church today but we are trying new things with her as well. I've been telling her she can kneel, sit, or stand (at any time) but she can't hang on us or lay down, if she does then she has to lay down when we get home. We're also trying to curb the unnecessary trips to the bathroom. For the first time in years she cried at Mass when I told her she couldn't lay down. When she did anyway she received 10 minutes in bed when we got home from Church.

Over breakfast I had the idea of just having the kids out at the pool for the afternoon and make it a fun pool party. Dressed for Church and kids in the van I was filling a kiddie pool so it would be warm after lunch. Home from Church we all changed clothes and Demand had her ten minutes in bed before we had leftovers for lunch then after a quick clean up Demand and I made popsicles from her cookbook and then it was out to the pool...for some of us. Demand kept insisting that it was too hot out so instead of hearing her whine we let her play inside. I sat reading in the shade with my feet in the now warm water while Happy played with the water. Mr. Sloth tossed the football around with Sidekick before remembering he was older now and out of shape and that it was much warmer than he realized.

At last it was nap time.(Turns out we were right, Demand was tired) Wouldn't you know it, I wasn't particularly tired. After a short nap I woke up, but the kids were still asleep and Mr. Sloth was watching baseball. After a loverly plate of nachos I headed back out to the pool for more reading and sunshine. Don't fall off your chair but I read an entire book this weekend! Me! Mrs. Sloth! I'll explain but first let me finish our Sunday....

I had a great time in the sun finishing my book and flipping through an Ina Garten cook book and getting wonderful ideas for the next few weeks. Mmmmmm! When the kids woke up it was clean up time and then off to Grandmas for Mr. Sloth's birthday celebration. By the time we left the house the downstairs was spotless, a rarity for a Sunday. Dinner and ice cream cake at Grandmas helped keep our home peaceful as well of course.

So my book. I read "The Well-Ordered Home" this weekend. Granted it is small in size and only 120 pages but I devoured every word. It has helped inspire my grand plan for August. In the car yesterday I referred to August as "Garage" month. Mr. Sloth wasn't as excited as I was. Back in May Mr. Sloth bought lumber for a number of projects one of which was re-shelving the garage. It has yet to be started. I thought with summer ending and baby coming, August would be the best time to get this project done. Hopefully he agrees. So that's just the garage, using tips from this book I hope to purge each room in the home or at least the top few. I also want to continue to purge clothing (something I started this week) and start reorganizing our storage space since we're most likely in this house until next Spring. Purging clothes is the first step in reorganizing our bedroom since we'll have a new little roommate in a few weeks. It dawned on me recently that Obscure is storing our newborn clothes at his home for the moment but I have no where to put them until we reorganize our bedroom. I hope to finish redecorating the downstairs bathroom this week before finally starting in on the playroom. I moved furniture around a week ago but there are still some storage issues to work out before the start of a school year.

Speaking of school year. I realized today that Demand's fall schedule is booking fast. She has Good Shepard (preschool CCD meets Montessori) on Tuesdays and most home school field trips happen on Fridays so that leaves three days a week and we'd like her to take one more extra curricular activity such as ballet or swimming or gymnastics. As for me I have decided to not teach CCD this year and Thursday morning Bible Study was canceled but I'm more than ok with that. I'll try and plan home school stuff while Mr. Sloth teaches CCD and a number of us are doing the Bible Time-line Study starting in August. Since I've already done the study it will just be a refresher but honestly I think I could do the study every year and learn something new each time.

So like I said we're trying to find balance in Slothville. Balance of time, balance of possessions and balance of work vs. rest.