Permission to Chill

Okay, peeps.

This Sunday hasn’t exactly gone as planned.

Mostly because we had a two-for-one kiddo run to Urgent Care this morning, and have one (Chica) confirmed positive for Covid, and another (Little Man) likely, as well—just too early in his symptoms for it to pop on the test.

Goodness.

I’m not positive (ha; see what I did, there?), but I think this is a new record for us. 10 days of school and soldiers already down? Impressive.

Oye.

That said…this unexpected round of household illness forced us to sequester and downshift, with the hubby and I even managing to snuggle with Coda girl and watch a movie (that’s right, a whole, entire movie) in the middle of a Sunday afternoon.

Say, what?!

Truly, I can’t remember the last time I’ve taken a moment to just sit and chill—really chill—in the middle of a weekend day. Unless it's in a movie theater, which--come to think of it--might be why I enjoy that process so much these days.

In fact, the only time I can even think, in recent memory, of feeling like I had the permission to give myself time to be “lazy” on a random afternoon was during Chica’s dental recovery six weeks ago—and even then, I was a pretty busy bee most of the time. I was just relieved and happy to not have to leave the house; that, alone, felt like a win.

Honestly, I’ve had conversations with the hubby in the past year or so about the fact that I just don’t think I know how to chill anymore. I don’t know when or why it happened. Sometimes, it feels like I’m so go-go-go that I don’t know how to halt and be a couch potato.

Is it some weird sense of guilt?

Did the addition of our household fur baby kind of ruin my sense of relaxation? (Since the timing kind of syncs up.)

Is it some mothering sixth sense that constantly has me trying to keep up or get ahead so it’s easier when we have surprises (like Covid) or days of overload and overwhelm?

Are these just the years we’re in? (That timing also syncs up.)

I’m not sure. I definitely don’t have the answer. But it’s something that’s been on my mind, lately, and something I’d like to figure out.

I’d like to model better downtime habits for my kiddos.

Heck, I’d actually like to feel like there’s better downtime, full stop.

And in the meantime, I’m going to say some thanks for days like today, when we randomly, magically, get a couple stolen (or what feel like stolen) hours to watch an actual movie. :)

It was this by the way:

And we liked it! Turns out, it’s a solid director of many movies we’ve seen and enjoyed in the past, so it makes sense that we liked the vibe. Coda girl, especially:

Looking forward to trying to launch a positive-mindset kind of week, despite the illness. We’ve had a solid first two weeks; we can do it, again!

More soon, peeps!

Over and out.