Planning Slow and Simple Days

I don't know about you, but for me, slow and simple doesn't seem to come naturally as much as I'd like it to. At least, not when I feel like there's a million things to do and I just want to get in and do them. Slow and simple can wait until everything is done, and then I can stop and slow down. Right?

After being in our new home for a few weeks, we're starting to feel a bit more settled. But there is still so much sorting and unpacking and washing and cleaning to be done, on top of the usual washing and cooking and eating and playing and snuggling and general stuff that makes up life at home with a toddler. And my little toddler is going through a bit of a clingy phase, no doubt due to a few factors - some serious teething being one of them - and coming to terms with being in a new house. New places and spaces, new routines, and perhaps mourning the loss of old, well known places and routines. The initial excitement has worn off and as nice as the new reality is, there is an element of missing the old and the familiar.

I can tell you it is a bit draining on the mama. Being home all day, looking at all the things needing to be done, making meals in a half-unpacked kitchen, seeing the dishes pile up and not being able to get in to clean up (one of my most hated things - dishes piling up in the kitchen). And knowing that I need to just leave it all and sit with my little one, cuddle, nurse, read books, whatever it is, just being there with him. So for this week I have consciously planned to be able to do just that. I have made sure that the priority for each day is very simple - apart from eating and sleeping, the activities are mostly cuddles and chooks (taking care of the chooks is William's job, he has taken the task on of his own accord). And if anything else actually gets done, all the better. But I'm not planning for it.

It helps. It is making all the difference in the world. And the main difference is in my head, apparently. Nothing much outwardly has changed, but the inner landscape for me has changed. Instead of finishing breakfast and feeling like 'right, lets get on with it', it has become something more like 'ok, lets go read a book on the couch'. A little shift in priority; rather than the cleaning and sorting being the priority, spending time with my little one is the priority. And in doing this, I have noticed that after a while, the clingy eases, he settles into his own play a little more, and I'm left with some more space to actually do this little job or that. With so much more ease and grace than if I try to push forward to just do.

It has only happened this way because I planned for it to be so. I wrote it down, in my brand new pretty paper notebook. I look at it every day. I know what we're eating for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I know what foods we will be snacking on. I know that there is more than enough time in the days for the things that absolutely must happen. And I'm slowly learning that less really, truly is more, in all ways. And I'm so glad for making this choice, because for a little while there, I was really struggling with this whole thing. A struggling mama is not nice for anyone. A little planning, to do less rather than more, has made all the difference in the world in our little home.