Around the House,  Family,  Marriage Confessions

Self-Inflicted Laziness

February 16, 2012 /

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In the hustle and bustle of daily life, sometimes our family gets behind. If we have a weekend with hardly any down time at home, laundry piles up that week, groceries don’t get bought, the house doesn’t get cleaned. And all of those things really throw off the upcoming week. Which really throws off a lot of other stuff. We’ve been pretty busy lately on the weekends. Between a few minor home repairs and renovations (I’ll have to show you my freshly painted bathroom soon!) and other obligations, we found ourselves without any down time at home for two weekends in row. This meant that none of us had any underwear, there was no bread or milk in the house, and our kitchen floors were a bit dodgy.

When times like these happen (and they do from time to time), our family institutes a “Self-Inflicted Laziness” weekend. It’s a weekend that we purposefully commit to NOT making any commitments. It usually starts with an email exchange between me and Chris in the middle of the week saying something like, “I ran out of dog food this morning, so I fed them Cheerios.” When those kinds of emails start flying, they are quickly followed by an email that says, “This weekend is reserved, okay?”

Reserved means that we turn down or even cancel any plans we have and our family basically goes on lock down for a full weekend. We try as much as possible not to leave the house at all on either Saturday or Sunday. One day of the weekend is strictly a home day. On this day, we sleep late (or, as late as possible with a toddler and baby), we fix a family breakfast, we hang around in our PJs, and we just enjoy each other. This past weekend, we found ourselves sitting on Bean’s bedroom floor at 6:00am playing with blocks and Legos. And we stayed there until 10:00.

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Later that morning after breakfast, we decided to break our own rule and we headed out of the house to take a walk around the neighborhood. I threw Gracie in the stroller and Bean rode around on his bike. It was a nice little break from being inside, especially because it was so beautiful outside, and it gave us a chance to play outside together.

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When we got home, we had a family lunch and then when the kids went down for naps, Chris and I cleaned the house really good before finally crashing ourselves for a bit. That night we had dinner together and when the kids went to bed, Chris and I got to pick our own REAL ADULT MOVIE with no singing or cartoons!!!! Oh, the luxury!

On Sunday, we got up and went to early church, went out for brunch at our favorite breakfast place, and came home for naps. After naps, Bean helped Chris work on our freshly painted, slightly renovated bathroom.

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I did a little meal planning and coupon clipping while they worked and Gracie continued to nap, and then I ran to the grocery store without any kids!!!!! Another luxury!!!

Self-Inflicted Laziness weekends aren’t really about laziness at all, actually. They are more about regrouping and refocusing on our family and home life. We don’t need them often, but, man, we sure can tell when we haven’t had one in a while. I’m really glad I had the chance to reconnect with Chris and with my tater tots. And I know they’re glad they now have clean underwear!

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