It was a lovely idea until Pony, who's 2 and a half, started wandering in and out with her sour creamy fingers, and then asked for a mandarin orange which she squirted and sprayed all over the coffee table. Juice and chunks and pieces of peel spread around, and she headed back to her burrito to finish the job, naked as the day she was born.
Nudity at dinner is totally acceptable around here. :)
If it hadn't been for Ryan feeling under the weather and myself feeling tired and a little achy as well, we would have possibly been a little more concerned about the mess(es) she was creating, but we just let it slide and it felt good. Dinner in front of the computer, after all, is quite an exciting event around here! We fight the urge to use screens to entertain the girls (and ourselves) in general, but the weekends are much more relaxed and we often end up watching a movie or two together or having them choose one to watch. YouTube is really wonderful. :)
The movie ended and we cleaned up, returning our house to its previous immaculate state. You see, we had a showing today! In fact, it wasn't the first! It has been exciting to see the interest begin since we put it on the market about a week ago. Having the house this clean is both a joy and a little bit of torture. A joy because Ryan is completely at peace. He LOVES it to be immaculately clean, and it makes him feel like he can relax and just chill out. If it's messy, he has a really hard time with it.
Myself, I don't mind a bit of clutter, or a bit of "stuff" lying about. As long as it's tidy-ish. I don't mind the odd pile of papers, the "special nostalgic items" sitting on top of the piano or the mantle, or things artfully decorating corners of the rooms. I'm rather artistic in my design of things, and kind of like an eclectic feel to a space. Ryan does win out though, because really, immaculate spaces don't entirely stress me out like messy spaces do him. I do feel a little uncomfortable in a place that feels like a museum (this is what I like to argue he wants our place to feel like), because it feels like you can't lay a finger on anything for fear of messing it up, but I just make sure it still feels like home in my own ways. :)
So after our rather informal dinner, the girls got off the computer (amazingly, with no complaints!) and joined us in the living room where we did a little tradition that we've been getting into casually over the past many months: highs and lows.
Highs and lows is just as you might imagine - we each take a turn to tell the family a good thing about our day and a not great thing. Some people say, "something you're grateful for and something you're not grateful for", or "something that brought you life and something that didn't bring you life" or other similar ideas, but highs and lows is just simple and easy to understand. Even Pony tries her best. Tonight, her high was, "playing" and while I could think of a number of times when she hit low points today (thanks to the ever communicative tantrum), she said she wasn't sad today at all. And so be it.
It's always interesting to hear what the other two say. I'm often surprised that what I perceived to be a low point in, say, Pito's day, wasn't such a big deal to her, and that Plava's high points were points that I wouldn't have necessarily guessed. Now, today wasn't like that. Plava's high points all had to do with candy and cookies she got at church, but you know. There are those times too! :)
The nice thing about doing the highs and lows is that it's great to get a chance to really reflect on the day, and what brings life to us individually, and what takes life away and brings us down. We decided tonight that it would be interesting to keep a family journal, or a list, of our daily highs and lows, and look at it from time to time to see patterns and learn more about each other. Wouldn't that be interesting?
For instance, my low was a moment this morning when I was feeling sorry for myself because of something I wished I had. And that speaks to my general feelings of self-pity that I deal with on a daily basis. My high was visiting my clients this afternoon and getting the chance to breathe some confidence into the mom as she doubted her ability to breastfeed her baby. I got this amazing chance to be a true tool of change for her, and that is a gift that I can't take for granted. I think it speaks to how much I yearn to really make a difference with people outside my general circle of friends, and how much life I receive from truly serving the people I work with!
After we shared highs and lows, we got the girls into PJ's and went down to their bedroom to read the final few chapters in a novel I've been reading to them. I know, it sounds so quintessential, right? A cute little family all huddled around a book in the evening, in their "jammies", snuggled and giggling and just as happy as can be. Nope. Pony jumped on and off my lap so many times that I was needing to whisper "patience..." to myself just to keep from throwing her physically onto the floor and away from me. Plava was listening intently but rolling around on the floor, nearly kicking my in the head again and again. Pito was jumping around the room, poking Pony and causing screamy tantrums, and then whining that she "didn't know what to do" and just wanted to watch the movie (the book was made into a movie - note to self: don't tell them that before you read it....). I had just about reached the end of my rope by the time the book was over, but managed to calm myself enough to enjoy a loving good-night before scooting out of the room and upstairs.
And now they're all asleep.
It's these small things within our family that are so good. The laid-back Sunday meals in front of the screen, the sharing of highs and lows, and sitting around reading a book together - these things are the things of life! What would we do without them? We'd be less connected, possibly less happy, maybe even feel that we knew each other less. I love these things, even though I felt so fed up by the end of it. I wouldn't trade these times for anything.
I really do hope that as we make the transition to a smaller place and enter a life in which we don't have as much yard work, things to fix, stuff to put away, and physical distance between us, we have more space to do more of this. I love the idea. Love it.
Simply wonderful. Wonderfully simple. Can't wait.
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