“We’re actually going to have a pretty nice little Saturday, we’re um, we’re gonna go to Home Depot. Yeah, buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed Bath And Beyond, I don’t know. I don’t know if we’ll have enough time.” -Will Ferrell in Old School
Urban Dictionary defines a “Perfect Saturday” as a day when all the teams you hate, lose, and all the teams you love, win…. Seeing as how I’m not a sports aficionado… and though I can agree, a good home makeover does occasionaly make for a fun Saturday… I want to take a stab at creating my own definition. The complication to this task is, I’ve had MANY perfect Saturday’s, and the defining qualities that made them perfect seem to correlate directly to the season of life I was in at the time….
Take Pre-Teen Julie for example…. her definition of a perfect Saturday: packing some awesome treats in a picnic and heading to the beach with the fam and a close bud, where the waves were at perfect pitch for body surfing or an epic battle of king of the hill atop the “White Thing” (aka: A giant square piece of industrial strength Styrofoam, that my sisters and I played with for at least 5 years… no joke). Top off the day with a slumber party, where I didn’t have to wake up early for church the next day, and we’ve found perfection ;)!
Fast forward to Highschool Julie… again a day at the beach is included, but likely not without driving around for hours with our windows down and the music up, because yeah… we were cool like that… OFCOURSE no parents would be near us, and the motley crew of friends that I had would likely find ourselves all back at someone’s house for the evening, doing absolutely nothing, but somehow loving every minute of it.
The Perfect Saturday at College started with a 3pm kick off, which left the FULL morning/afternoon for tailgating, (without requiring the insane wake-up hour predicated by the Noon kickoffs), the weather would allow for perfect comfort in Jeans and a cute hoodie… MSU would trounce all over UofM… a quick booze snooze would follow the game, and we would celebrate our victory all night long! This type of a Saturday remained perfect, with a few occasional tweaks, all the way up to the point of mom-status… at which point I had to retire the weekend warrior after learning the hard way that you can’t nurse a hang-over with an early rising ankle biter!
I occasionally miss the carefree nature of heading out for the evening on a whim, and being able to sleep off the late night in the morning, or the get-up-‘n go weekends with friends… however after this past Saturday… I’ve come up with a new definition.
The Perfect Saturday as a mom, starts out with Kevin answering the call of duty and taking our little ball of energy out of the house for ‘fun with dad’, leaving it quiet enough to sleep in until I’m ready to rise on my own and stroll down for a leisurely breakfast (flash back to a Saturday morning, Pre-Caleb). It’s followed by a family ‘picnic’ on our patio, and shortly after Caleb going down for a nap sans fuss, allowing me to get ready in peace and quiet. After nap the whole fam heads out for an ‘adventure’, this week’s adventure… turtle hunting in a double kayak along Lake Austin on a beautiful sunny and 70 degree late February afternoon, followed up by watching Caleb discover all sorts of fun things at a local nature trail, and icing on the cake… Dinner out with my boys! Just when I think you can’t improve upon perfection… Caleb’s down for the night without so much as a peep, and Root beer floats and a great movie are waiting with Kevin downstairs! Now THAT my friends, is a perfect Saturday! I can concede that to some of my friends, pre-kid stage, this Saturday doesn’t sound all that exciting… to them, I pose the following question…. Have you ever tried taking a two year old in a KAYAK?!? OK… Exciting may not be the word used to describe it… but it certainly WAS an adventure!
PRECIOUS pics, julie!~ another great post!