Think Outside the Box: Un-planning and Unwinding

Yoga Time with the Toddler!

We are a family who thrives on routines and when routines change, we strive to find a new normal as quickly as possible! Big and little things can change family routines--holidays, work schedules, season/time changes, traveling, visitors--you name it! These all present wonderful opportunity to teach flexibility and adaptability. Change, however, can also feel unsettling or challenging--particularly to sensitive little ones.
Whenever I have taught outside the home and something is different or suddenly changes, I encourage my students to look for and find the things that are the same. Who are the people that help us that are the same? (This is particularly useful if/when a familiar face is not around or a teacher is absent.) What are the things in the room that are the same that bring us comfort? What are the parts of the day that did not and do not change? I have a particular passion for teaching children flexibility perhaps because I, myself, often struggle with rigidity. I love to know what to expect. I love to plan. I love routine and structure and some might call me a creature of habit. Still, surprises can be fun. So can spontaneity. "Mixing it up a bit" in a safe, secure environment can add just the right spice to life! My husband brings a perfect balance of these qualities to our home and as I see my own son thrive in the routine and the expected (and sometimes grapple with the opposite), I am invited to support him as well as he grows toward flexibility (and so do I)!
Becoming a play-at-home mom this year was a new opportunity to build meaningful routines. My husband's work schedule along with his lengthy commute each day set the pace and the tone. When I started staying home, my son quickly appreciated the additional Mommy time and also began to crave more Tatty (Yiddish: father) time as well. We adjusted evenings to really include a good dose of quality father and son time. They enjoyed walks and building towers and reading, playing and bonding together. We also did things as a family and continued family dinners, but evenings and bedtime routines became very centered around the two of them. This was also a nice respite for me, having been "on" all day at home, and perhaps a nice change of pace for my husband as well, having been in an office all day.
Recently my husband was blessed with the opportunity to begin a teaching job a couple of nights a week in addition to his day job. It is a wonderful opportunity for our family to work toward our goals and plans for the future and we both made some adjustments at home (as well as to his previous work schedule) to ensure as smooth a transition as possible. He has eliminated his commute on the days he works nights as well and works locally instead. This allows him to still have his quality time with our son on those days (and me to have a little break as well). But now, those evenings were Mommy & Me time and even though I totally had this daytime thing down, a few more hours in the evening seemed to stretch endlessly. I found I had no idea what to do with that time other than turn to screens. So I consulted the experts: my husband, my fellow mommies, and Pinterest. And what I found we needed most was not more planning and more activity, but rather, some UNPLANNED time to UNWIND.
Adjusting to our new routine is a work in progress and we always invite the opportunity to go back to the drawing board as necessary. But if you, too, are finding yourself with some hours to fill in your day or evening and aren't quite sure how to fill them, here are some things that are working for us:

Our local library has some great children's
Yoga DVDs. Pinterest has links to great
websites for child-friendly Yoga and
exercise routines as does YouTube. Sometimes
we make up our own as well!

Tonight my son asked to do Yoga. He loves choosing
what color mat to use, watching me light a favorite
scented candle and is now also growing into
performing the poses he sees on the DVDs we use or
by watching me.

Here's an example of a family Activity Bucket List
I created for a workshop on surviving the summer
without school!

• The You-Pick Method: I am such a planner by nature that it never occurred to me to ask my son what he wanted to do with this time together. Several fellow home-preschooling mommies suggested this one, so I tried it. And what do you know? It worked like a charm! Asking my little one what he wants to do with our special time was an empowering experience for us both. He is a bit young yet to ask it in a completely open-ended manner (though I imagine this will be less intimidating as he gets a few more Mommy and Me nights under his belt). I offer a few suggestions and he chooses what we do. I include activities he enjoys that we don't necessarily get to during the day like cooking/baking, Yoga, arts and crafts projects and (YES) movie nights. Larger families can utilize a voting process with predetermined activities or a rotation of who gets to choose. Kids can be involved in creating a family Bucket List--even using an actual bucket with activities written on individual papers inside--of choices for unplanned family time like this. 

This is my U-Pick-a-Project Basket! We do a lot of arts and crafts as part of our preschool experience. I also keep a basket stocked with ready to make projects for open-ended evenings, rainy days, or other unplanned times together. Sometimes I stock up on cute little kits or seasonal projects from the dollar store or discount aisle of the craft store. Other times I save materials from old projects in a ziplock bag. The idea of the U-Pick-a-Project Basket is to have things ready to go that require little to no additional prep. It's not necessarily an invitation for process art (although you could create a basket more conducive to that as well, and rather than including kits and crafts, include materials, small parts and trinkets that can be used for art and creation), It's also a great travel accessory if the projects are not too messy and material-intensive. I plan to bring our Thanksgiving themed collection along on our upcoming family vacation for some festive fun in our spare time.

• About Those Screens: We don't have a television, but we do allow for select videos and shows. While this is not the only thing we do in the evenings or with down time, it is one thing we do. Sometimes that just means snuggling on the couch to a favorite show on Netflix or DVD (I got some awesome Sesame Street snuggles tonight thanks to a DVD my son found at the library). We've also done themed movie/activity nights. We checked out the movie Cars recently after my son got a pair of Lightening McQueen slippers and was curious about it. I wasn't so sure this would be his type of film, but I popped him the bathtub (with some toy cars to splash around with), and got him in his favorite truck pajamas. Next, I helped him carry his bin of toy cars and trucks to the rug and even brought a car riding toy downstairs for him to sit/ride around on in his very own drive-in theater. We popped in the movie and the feature film captivated his undivided attention for about 15 minutes before he mostly had a blast just playing with the movie on in the background!

• PLAY! My son took the lead with this one. He loves to play and even though we are home together, our days are often busy and filled with activities in and out of the house that are more structured. Having a time and space in the day for unhindered play at his discretion is vital. He has toys and books and a whole world of ideas that, when I am lucky, he invites me into! And when we have unplanned unwinding time, I don't feel the ticking of the clock to get dinner ready or be at our next engagement. There's nothing between this moment and bedtime to stop me from getting down with him and joining his game of traffic jam or making a pretend smoothie in his kitchen set or helping him draw a picture of a "big triangle" in his journal because he wants to color it green! 

Some fun baking together--but you don't even have to turn on the oven and get out all of the ingredients in your cupboard! We have just as much fun washing and preparing vegetables, making smoothies or practicing cutting, peeling and grating. And who says it has to be edible? You could whip up a favorite playdough or sensory play recipe instead.

• And once you've joined their world for a bit, invite them into yours! So putting away laundry, washing dishes and making Shabbos dinner might sound like chores to you and me, but even the most daunting tasks are more tolerable fun when shared with the ones you love. My little guy probably wouldn't go for a whole evening of household chores, but he is totally eager to help out (and sometimes hinder a bit) with activities in the kitchen and around the home. Plus, there is such a benefit to including even very young children in age appropriate chores. My little one loves cooking and baking with me (even if he almost never tastes what we make in the end) and he's just as eager to help me transfer laundry, put things away and clean/wash/scrub ANYTHING. I include these activities in our time together so that we can spend time together, rather than me being absent and unavailable to him while I get the housework done. 

We are all adjusting to our new routine and, while I was a bit unsettled in how to plan for these extra hours just the two of us, now I am savoring the gift that is being UNPLANNED in those hours. As much time as I do spend with my little guy during the day and as much as we both love and learn through themed play and home preschooling, I feel very much that these less structured times are the ones where I really get to know the little boy my husband and I are raising. It may not be a specifically Thanksgiving related activity, but it has me feeling thankful nonetheless this time of year and all year through.

And the best way to unwind at the end of a full day? Unplanned snuggles!