We have this little routine in our house that I absolutely adore. When Thursday night rolls around, we tell Henry that after J gets home from work on Friday it will be…you guessed it: “Weekend Time!!!” I wish you could hear the intonation and exuberance with which Henry repeats this phrase. His face gets all excited, eyebrows lifted and eyes as wide as can be, and then he says, “Weekend Time!” seemingly as one word, and with as much gusto as he can muster. It’s a favorite Henry-ism, for sure. I love these shenanigans because they’re so “us.” We’re all looking forward to the weekend ahead–to family time and a trip to the coffee shop, to the Farmer’s Market and church and time outside together. At this time of year, weekend time is enhanced by beach visits, ice cream, long walks, trips to the park, and plenty of work in the yard. There’s much to celebrate, even if we don’t have big plans. In fact, I think we like the unplanned weekends best of all–they leave room for extra playtime and naps and dinners out on the grill. They’re sometimes the reason we all hang in there the rest of the week 🙂

On the front end of the weekend, I usually like to try to get things in order as much as possible–shopping done, errands run, things around the house picked up, vacuumed, etc. to a good degree. Today was not entirely one of those days, although I had every intention of making it so. As I headed into the kitchen to make breakfast this morning, H bounced around the house with a giant ball…chasing it, kicking it, and torturing the dog with it as always. In a split second, he was diving after the runaway ball and I was watching his head make contact with the very solid kitchen doorframe. I lunged to grab him, but it was just too late. The tears were immediate, as was the black and blue spot–a terrible looking, swelling nugget taking shape on impact. I’m hard pressed to convince our active kiddo to use ice in almost any instance, but there was no way this big bad bump was escaping the relief of a cold pack today. So it was time to get creative. Enter: special breakfast. Cinnamon sugar toast and a sliced banana, served up on the couch with snuggles and a side of Handy Manny’s Big Construction Job on DVD. That, and a persistent ice pack. Thirty minutes in, we were good as new, with a bonus bump and bruise that will probably linger for a few days just for kicks.

“special breakfast,” handy manny, and an ice pack. win.

I won’t regale all of the details of the rest of our day, but highlights (and a lowlight or two) would include a $6 John Deere ride-on toy tractor at a killer garage sale, a FREE construction hard hat and Lowly Worm apple car for Henry (ten points for the “free” box today), traipsing around town, and H getting his arm stuck (and I mean, really stuck) between the bars of the seat in the cart at Target, replete with screaming in the checkout lane and yours truly frantically trying to free said appendage while paying for our things and hurrying out of the store with an inconsolable boy. Whew! Then lunch and a fairly routine afternoon, followed by a field trip to the most gigantic greenhouse I’ve ever laid eyes on. I thought we had entered greenhouse heaven. I mean, how many nurseries have a kettle corn stand and a junk wagon, a play area for kids, and more space than we could wander in an hour and a half? It goes without saying that we’ll be spending a good portion of the weekend out of doors, planting and sprucing up and officially welcoming the Spring season. Hello, Memorial Day Weekend!

this place goes on forever!

All in all, I’ll give this particular Friday and 80% on the scale. I’m docking it 20% for all of the injuries our smallish person incurred throughout the course of the day. If I listed all of the falls and bumps here in one post, I’d have a few more paragraphs to go. Let’s just say I was very happy to tuck the munchkin safely into bed–surrounded by very soft things, a little while ago. Here’s to a day with more balance (and I do mean actual, physical balance;) in it tomorrow!

Ultimately, I think we made the best we could of the day, and we certainly prepped ourselves for a colorful and green thumb-ish kind of long weekend. The very best kind at the end of May, if you ask me.

look mom, a geranium!

a flower for my favorite little flower 😉

excited to get my hands dirty tomorrow! planters and window boxes and yard, here we come!

mm