From Leisure to the Humdrum

Today is the last day of our week long vacation at Edisto Beach. This is the fourth year we've come here, and each year we've enjoyed the peaceful, slow pace of an island that is heavy on wildlife and light on nightlife. There's really not much to do here as far as man-made entertainment - and we absolutely love it. (I should note here that my dad wishes the waves were bigger, but even that bodes well for families with young children!). The most exciting thing that happens to us is when we spot dolphins swimming in the ocean, which we do quite often here.

I had hoped to use this week to just BE with the children, as opposed to managing them throughout the day, and also to do some blogging that I hadn't had time for at home. The former I accomplished (thanks to my dad, who often kept Scarlett at the beach house, I was able to spend time with the rest of the munchkins at the beach), but the latter fell to the wayside. And that's fine, of course. It's the way I would have prioritized things had I been pressed.

Another goal was to come away from our vacation feeling recharged for going back into the fray. Sometimes I feel even more depleted after a break, but this time I truly do feel ready to hit the ground running when we return home. That's good, because that's precisely what we have to do when we get there. Almost every single one of our fall clubs and activities start next week. As I was pondering what our schedule was going to look like, I realized I was going to have redouble efforts to get a good routine going again, fussy baby or no. Being able to step out of things and enjoy a long respite from it all this week has, hopefully, enabled me to take a figurative breath and clear the cobwebs from my mother-of-a-newborn brain so that I think I'm ready to tackle the job ahead of me. Fortunately experience has taught me that a strict minute-by-minute schedule will be unrealistic even to attempt, so what we'll go for is just laying out and sticking to a general routine - but still, it will need to be a firm one.

Check back in later to see how well that goes!