Life will have other plans for us as we try to ease into 2025. Kids have sports, and we have work. There are practices and rehearsals, get-togethers, and birthday parties. We’re all running around to “do it all,” and we typically put aside the one thing that matters: quality time with our loved ones.
One mom admits that her family either goes a mile a minute with plans or is couch potatoes staring at screens. She had enough of the imbalance and decided to do something about it with a proactive plan.
“We knew we didn’t want to be a busy family where our kids were in a million activities, and we were gone every single weekend,” Abigail Roe begins.
“But we quickly fell into the other end of the spectrum, where we were doing absolutely nothing. And this year we’re changing that.”
With a simple schedule, she planned out a four-month repeating schedule with something fun and family-friendly every second Saturday of the month.
“We just wanted to get something on the calendar. The goal is just to get out of the house for a couple of hours and do something fun and new and exciting. It doesn’t have to be expensive, just something different,” she explained before breaking down what each month’s activity will be for the family.
“First month is a family day. We go somewhere all together. Second month is one parent taking both of the kids and the other one getting a break. Third month is us each taking a kid because we want to get to know them independently. It’s really easy to lump them together, especially because our kids are so close in age. And the four prioritizes adult time and the kids are staying home with the sitter. And it repeats, but we change who plans it,” she explained.
Okay, this is kind of brilliant! Each reserved Saturday serves a different purpose and ensures that each person in the family gets their emotional needs met. Mom will get a break (so will Dad!), and their kids will get one-on-one quality time with each of their parents. Roe also ensures that all the emotional labor of planning will not fall on her shoulders (as it so often does for moms!).
Gesturing to her chart behind her, she continues, “My plan. His plan. We swap who takes the kids and who gets the break. We swap the kids that we took for the one-on-one, and we swap who plans the date night. We’re making it a priority. We’re putting it on the fridge. It’s visual, it’s color-coded. It’s just simple, and it aligns with our values of slow living without things being boring, you know?”
Okay, slow living without being boring is my new 2025 motto!
