Family Day? Nice Try ...

Jill and I decided to do a “family day” on the first Saturday of every month and this is an exceprt of our our first attempt. Unfortunately, Josh and I had stayed up most of the night before, so we were both grumpy and unpleasant to be with. Our family day went like this:

1. Eat breakfast together and do dishes. Get mad at Josh for not helping. Assure Sam that the chicks are not about to die. Help Lily with her hurt foot (long story - may be broken, we will see).

2. Clean the family toy room. Josh was happy to miss wrestling practice to help, but Zach begged to go to a basketball event that day.

3. After what seemed like an eternity sorting toys in the toy room, we all go to Anna’s soccer game (probably the last time the entire family went to a sporting event for a family member was when Scottie, who is almost 20, was a kid). She played goalie and did well. She got sunburned. Lily had to be carried everywhere because of her hurt foot. Zach and Sam played catch with the football. Josh tried to catch up on sleep on the sideline.

4. After the game we went to lunch at a restaurant. We had to tell the kids multiple times that it was not appropriate to complain about eating out and there were plenty of left-overs at home if they wanted to keep complaining. Eventually we ate and everyone calmed down. Josh tried to catch up on sleep by putting his head on the table most of the time. Josh and Zach ordered “wings” that were too spicy. Neither can tolerate “spicy” food very well. So, there were a lot of trades during lunch.


5. After lunch we all kind of did our own house/yard jobs and then we let the kids have their freedom back.  For the first time all day, everyone was happy.


I’d say family day was moderately successful. We didn’t think there were be that many conflicts on the schedule that day but we were shocked with how much stuff we had to say “no” to in order to spend time with the family like that.