Sunday priorities

So it’s one of those Sundays when I’m full of ambition but short on time.

Would like to:

• Get bulbs in the garden
• Read my book (The Birth House by Ami McKay – very interesting, especially in the context of the spouting off I’ve been doing about community-based health close-to-home)
• Read the papers
• Work on my photo albums, after making good headway at my first scrapbook crop on Friday night
• Take photos
• Go on a bike ride
• Do yoga
• Sleep in
• As always, keep up with my online scrabble games and other Web 2.0-type activities.

Should:

• Clean the house
• Do dishes
• Do laundry
• Clean off the big long desk in the great room that becomes a repository for everything
• Do some writing for work so I’m ahead of things rather than falling further behind
• Do more unpacking and organizing

Must:

• Procure lettuce for a salad I’ve promised to bring to Sandy’s at dinnertime
• Feed and interact with kids (two of whom have seen me plenty this weekend after a marathon soccer game in Abby, birthday party in Coquitlam, Bee Movie at Silver City, Ikea stroll from Hell, McDonalds on the way home in Langley kind of 12-hour outing).

Obviously, there’s not time for all of this in one day. Must prioritize. Notice that it’s not pouring rain out and it is early November. Decide this means that gardening wins out in the morning, with the added bonus of fresh air and a bit of stretching to make up for the lack of yoga (because I chose coffee, several chapters of my book, and newspapers and bacon and eggs over the very beneficial Sunday yoga session).

So, do I leave the kids be zoning on screens so I can be more efficient in my limited time morning gardening session, or force them outside too, as it’s good for them to get fresh air?

Decide on the latter, which I know will affect my productivity, but Miles spends enough time in front of TV and computer when he’s home while Dad is trying to work.

So out we go, with the kids assigned the task of pulling out annuals, along with myself, while I prep for planting tulip and daffodil bulbs.

I KNOW I’ll get more done if I ignore Miles and try to hide the fact that I’m planting things, because he always wants to “help”, which takes way more time than me doing it myself. He comes over, holding a slinky that he’s found in his sandbox.

I decide that rather than fight with him or turn him away or divert him or (worst scenario) let him do the planting himself and really slow us down, I’ll incorporate him into the process. So, fifty times over, I dig a hole. He suspends the slinky above the hole as a tunnel. I drop the bulb through the slinky tunnel. It lands safely in the hole and I cover it. Repeat.

We talk about how beautiful gardens are. How the bulbs will rest for the winter and come out in the spring as beautiful flowers. How he loves tulips.

Together we plant faith in the future. That in six months we’ll still be here to enjoy those flowers. He feels part of the process. We work together, until Molly entices him away with a pile of leave to jump in. We have fun. Strike one task off my long Sunday list.