“What are we going to do this weekend?”
The question tends to roll out of the mouths of my children around Tuesday evening, as they begin counting down the hours until noon on Friday.
Unless we have something planned, like a birthday party or event, the answer is typically: “I don’t know, whose turn is it to draw?”
It began as a summer tradition in our home about three years ago: we would sit down together around the beginning of June and write out different activities we wanted to do once school was out – go to the zoo, Calaway Park, take river walks, go to the spray park or various pools, visit the Saskatoon Farm or the museum, go for day-long walks or bike rides, etc.
Every weekend, the three monkeys would alternate drawing activities for the week ahead from our “activity jar,” and we’d put them on the calendar. It made every week different and gave everyone a little something to look forward to.
This year, we added a few things to the jar and decided it could be a year-round tool. So now, whenever we have a free weekend someone (“It’s my turn!” “No, it’s mine!) draws a slip of paper and we plan some fun family time.
Sometimes it can take a while to find something appropriate for the amount of time we have to spend or the weather.
Last week, the first activity Christian pulled was the Calgary Zoo. Sorry, kiddo, not at the end of January.
Next was the Turner Valley pool. Hmm.
Then the spray park. At which point we were really beginning to miss summer.
Finally, he drew out “Bowling.” Yes, that we could do!
We hadn’t been bowling in a couple of years, so it was kind of a treat. It seems to be one of those things nobody thinks of when someone says, “What do you want to do today?”
It was Baby Girl’s first time at a bowling alley, and the first time I’d taken any of my little ones at such a young age. I was surprised they had shoes her size.
She didn’t last long – just one push, with the help of an older sister, enough to make the ball creep toward the pins.
The issue, of course, is that the ball wasn’t coming back. So, naturally, she chased it down the lane – or tried to, anyway, before Mom caught her by the elbow and pulled her back.
She went boneless. Crying on the floor, done. It was all we could do to wrangle her into the stroller.
That’s where she spent the rest of the hour – in her stroller, with her little bowling shoes on, eating a snack and watching her siblings bowl.
It could have been worse.
We could have been at the zoo in January.
