Friday Family Night

When you first decide to have a baby, you have all kinds of ideas of ways you want to live and be together. Things you want to do, places you want to go. Then everyday life sets in, and you get busy working, trying to get dinner on the table, and getting enough sleep...sometimes those beautiful ideas and plans get forgotten or postponed. The next thing you know, a decade has gone by and you haven't done it the way you envisioned it.

"Family Nights" are one of those ideas that we've had a hard time instituting on a regular basis. I know of other families that have one night a week where the family stays home and plays board games, or watches a movie, or something fun that everyone does together. Our kids are still young, so it's not yet hard to get everyone to stay home for a night. But we haven't made this a weekly routine yet. I want to.

Last Friday, we made it a movie night. We ate veggie burgers and homemade meatball subs. I bought some organic Blue Sky soda. We rented Surf's Up, which everyone was wanting to see. After dinner, we pulled out the bed on the sofa, piled up together, and watched the movie. And we had ice cream cones as well. After the movie, we watched some of the bonus features and then got the kids to bed. It was great. Now the trick is to do something like that every Friday so that it becomes a routine. I want it to be such a part of our lives that if we don't do it one week, we all miss it. I want it to the be the kind of thing where when the kids are off at college, they still try to make it home for Family Night when they can.

We all take comfort in routines.

Tonight we talked about having a game night. Game night is a little more challenging for Bella, because she's still too young for most games. But we'll work something out. Maybe we can play a little Candyland before playing Cranium, which is what the older kids love. We can try to incorporate her into the Cranium game too. She can be the designated dice roller and card picker. I think that will work.

Last night, Sofia suggested that we decide on Wednesday what we're going to do on Friday. That way we have time to rent the movie if it's a movie night. Smart girl. She's suggesting a routine for planning our routine. I like the way she thinks.