Now that we are back in a school routine, Saturdays mean something again.
The schedule-free days of summer reminded me of all the pre-school years when Saturday was just another day of the week. Just another day of waking with the sun and filling the hours with play and projects, cleaning and feeding. With the exception of Sunday rituals, there wasn't much to mark the weekend from the week in the first years of family life.
But now.
Now Saturdays are different. And the way each person in my family approaches Saturday reflects a little about who we are, too.
Kyle and Dacey are not ones to sleep in. Kyle likes to get up and plan a cooking course for the day. Most Saturdays, we try to have people over for dinner, so he likes to get up and put meat in the smoker, hit the farmers market and the grocery store, and plot a course to the evening meal.
Dacey is like her Daddy and doesn't like to waste daylight. Fortunately, she's old enough to entertain herself, often slipping quietly out of their room and turning on the TV downstairs and enjoying not having to argue and compromise with her sister over what to watch. She's also been known to grab a book or start an art project in the earliest hours of a Saturday, perfectly content to, like her father, set her own course for the day.
AJ and I, we like to loll around a bit on a Saturday. The school days take a toll on AJ and she really needs the sleep-in time. Growing two babies takes its toll on me, and I really need the sleep-in time. She appeared beside my bed at a little after 8 this morning, and we snuggled and rubbed our eyes and whispered in groggy voices about dreams and breakfast.
I don't even know how I captured the image-on-image in this shot. It's kind of ethereal and magical but I never would have seen it at all without the camera lens. That's kind of how I'm feeling about Saturday right now. Without the lens of Monday through Friday routine, I would miss the hazy, happy different-ness of Saturday.
I mean, sure, there's still laundry and I need to tidy the house a bit, but I want to be open to this just one day a week where the routine lets me push it instead of it pushing me.
For today and the months ahead, I'm loving on Satudays.
What does Saturday look like 'round your place?
