A few weeks ago I picked F up from preschool as always and we drove home.
It's exactly a six-minute drive from preschool/work to home. We usually listen to the same 2 songs during that drive. We were waiting to make a left-hand turn when F piped up in the backseat with a simple - yet strong - question.
How was your day, Mama?
It's a question we expect of our colleagues and spouses, friends and acquaintances but I would never expect those words to come from the mouth of my preschooler. It's so... grown up. And so, it became a thing. Every day from that day on, F would ask how my day was and I would ask him about his. During our six-minute drive, he would tell me about his favourite and least favourBite parts of the day and I would generally just tell him my day was good or bad because there's only so much you can say to a four-year-old.
We have a lot of little things we do, like our weekly Starbucks date (every Friday), and F's bath schedule. One night a week we have pizza and one night a week we have nachos. We watch Octonauts every night before bed. I realized not so long ago that F and I spend a lot of time together without really spending anything actually together and I vowed to change that.
Tonight, we had our weekly Saturdate - aka our "Saturday date". We do something different every Saturday, whether it's going to the park or going for a walk, grabbing "coffee" together, seeing a movie at the theatres, baking cookies, whatever. We always do something, just the two of us. Sometimes, we don't even leave the house.
Busy with 10,000 things to do, I bunked down with my laptop to try to get ahead of my list when F came over - smiling as wide as can be - and asked what my "best part" of our date had been. It was a pretty easy answer - the best part of my date was hanging out with him, without anything else to do. But what was his?
I got to go to McDonald's and have a nice supper, with nice chicken nuggets, and fries and yoooooooooooooogurt and there was a drink and a straw and I got to see Grampy! And then we watched a movie and remember how funny The Croods were?
He said all of this in about 11 seconds, not taking a breath from start to finish and it was pretty much the cutest thing I've ever heard.
It's easy to get completely wrapped up in work and writing and chores and trying to maintain something resembling a social life and squeeze in time for the handsome Hockey Coach, but hearing how much F enjoyed a simple, 30-minute trip to McDonald's is more than enough proof that Saturdate is the most important day of the week.
It's exactly a six-minute drive from preschool/work to home. We usually listen to the same 2 songs during that drive. We were waiting to make a left-hand turn when F piped up in the backseat with a simple - yet strong - question.
How was your day, Mama?
It's a question we expect of our colleagues and spouses, friends and acquaintances but I would never expect those words to come from the mouth of my preschooler. It's so... grown up. And so, it became a thing. Every day from that day on, F would ask how my day was and I would ask him about his. During our six-minute drive, he would tell me about his favourite and least favourBite parts of the day and I would generally just tell him my day was good or bad because there's only so much you can say to a four-year-old.
We have a lot of little things we do, like our weekly Starbucks date (every Friday), and F's bath schedule. One night a week we have pizza and one night a week we have nachos. We watch Octonauts every night before bed. I realized not so long ago that F and I spend a lot of time together without really spending anything actually together and I vowed to change that.
Tonight, we had our weekly Saturdate - aka our "Saturday date". We do something different every Saturday, whether it's going to the park or going for a walk, grabbing "coffee" together, seeing a movie at the theatres, baking cookies, whatever. We always do something, just the two of us. Sometimes, we don't even leave the house.
Busy with 10,000 things to do, I bunked down with my laptop to try to get ahead of my list when F came over - smiling as wide as can be - and asked what my "best part" of our date had been. It was a pretty easy answer - the best part of my date was hanging out with him, without anything else to do. But what was his?
I got to go to McDonald's and have a nice supper, with nice chicken nuggets, and fries and yoooooooooooooogurt and there was a drink and a straw and I got to see Grampy! And then we watched a movie and remember how funny The Croods were?
He said all of this in about 11 seconds, not taking a breath from start to finish and it was pretty much the cutest thing I've ever heard.
It's easy to get completely wrapped up in work and writing and chores and trying to maintain something resembling a social life and squeeze in time for the handsome Hockey Coach, but hearing how much F enjoyed a simple, 30-minute trip to McDonald's is more than enough proof that Saturdate is the most important day of the week.
I hold firm that Saturdays are best! We can *truly* just "be here now", as Thing 2 used to say when she was a baby. I love that you make this day sacred for you and F.
ReplyDeleteProof - in 11 seconds, no less - that it really is the little things that make our little Things happy. :D