Our weekends as a family changed when we made time for unscheduled, unregulated FUN

Is it only me, or does anyone else feel like they need an extra day built into each week?

On any given week it feels impossible to fit it all in.

Monday through Friday is an inevitable blur of breakfast making, lunch packing, school drop-off, racing to work, taking an infinite number of calls, rushing for pick-up, getting dinner on the table, tubby time, book reading, bed time, some quality time with my husband. Then lights out!

The work week feels like a never-ending list of schedules and deadlines to meet—and this isn’t only for work! It pains me to have to say “no” to one more game of Paw Patrol, or hide-and-seek, because we are going to be late for school.

Most days, I feel like I’m in a tornado of obligations, running around just to keep the wheels in motion.

When the weekend comes, I hope that it will be filled with family time and play. But most of the time the weekends are more packed than the weekdays. Filled with the things that we didn’t get to during the week—grocery shopping, cleaning the house, swim lessons, soccer, family events, birthday parties.

Where is the time for fun? If I’m craving it, I know my toddler does too.

Sure there are kid’s birthday parties and family get togethers and playdates, which are all fun, and swim and soccer lessons, which are great for confidence and skill building. But I think balance is key, as with anything in life. And I find myself craving unscheduled, non-obligated, non-regimented FUN.

I have always been one to say yes. Yes to ALL the things. But as I get close to the end of my pregnancy and the time of saying NO is very near, I began to think.

Why can’t we carve out a day (or part of a day) for fun, with no schedule or requirements or racing around?

This past Sunday we tried it. We had no plans, it was a rainy day—and it was perfect. We stayed in our pjs all day. We played, really played. With every toy we had (so much so we were able to take on a little decluttering by purging the toys with missing pieces—win, win I’d say).

We indulged and watched TV. We ate all three meals together, seated, as a family, and talked to each other. We baked muffins. We did crafts. We decorated the house for Halloween. We napped…we all napped. We ran–literally ran–to the park after dinner to catch that last bit of play before it got dark. Not because we were trying to fit it into a schedule, but because it was fun.

That day of fun made me feel so recharged, so refreshed, so ready to take on the week.

I also learned a good lesson that I will need to remind myself about as each birthday invite arrives or text message comes in for a play date. It’s okay not to say yes to every invite you get. It’s okay to have a day where we can just be, without “scheduled fun.” We need time to be together as a family and to just be with each other, and reconnect.

I realized that I don’t need an extra day in the week. I just need to find time within the seven days we are given to be without a schedule and let fun develop naturally, the way it was intended to be.