A Day of Rest. Sort of.

First, three things:

1. Saturday is still the Sabbath, not Sunday.

2. We do traditionally observe a day of rest on Sunday, not because of the Law (as per point #1, the true Sabbath would still be Saturday, anyway) but to observe the Lord's Day (although obviously, all days are his), and "anyone who enters God's rest also rests from his own work, just as God did from his." (Hebrews 4 10). We don't follow any strict or particular rules about this day - we just set it aside in a general way.

3. Whatever the case, it's just really nice to have a day to rest and relax, to recharge for the week ahead.

Now just to get the kids on board. Have you ever noticed that kids don't "relax" well? It's taken us some time and many a frustrating Sunday to understand this fully and to relinquish the idea of a completely "do-nothing" sort of day. In the first place, they still need to be fed and cared for, and obviously the younger they are, the more of this needs to be done. Second, they still generate the same amount of mess on a Sunday as they do on any other day of the week, and the mess generated by a houseful of children (especially boys) is like a living thing - if you don't keep up with it, it will rise up and devour you. Try sitting around all Sunday and leaving it to its own devices. It gets very, very ugly. Third, kids seem to interpret "doing nothing" as boredom, and bored kids don't do much towards a peaceful day. In fact, a Sunday in which church only fills the morning (i.e. no evening services of any kind) can get rather long, leaving the parents of five young children more tired than when they started the weekend and maybe even eager for Monday. So over time we've finally figured out that a "day of rest" has to mean something a little different than...well, than an actual day of rest. This past Sunday we had some success in navigating through the day and turning it into a peacful day, if not one of complete relaxation. (Ahhh...maybe one day!) Here's what we did:

We went to church, including Sunday School, in the morning. I probably embarrased Dave by nursing Scarlett during our first time at the class for our age (which we fit into technically, but the jury is still out on whether we still count as "young marrieds" when we can't even remember what life was like when it was just the two of us!). At least I kept her from doing the nursing gymanstics that are her wont these days! At any rate, we went to the service after that, but I left with Scarlett even before the singing was over when she starting getting fussy, and while I was with her in the nursery, I saw Dave walk by with Chase, who was in a funk that started when Ryan wasn't allowed to go into his class with him that morning (he usually is). We didn't blame Chase for being upset, and even if we had, there's little one can do with him when he's angry and feeling uncooperative. Scarlett and I joined them in the hall, where Dave offered to watch both kids so that I could sit in the service. A few minutes later, I thought I heard Scarlett crying, and then Chase came through the double doors, whispering loudly, "Mom, Scarlett needs you! She has a dirty diaper!" After I went out and took care of that, the four of us were sitting in the hallway, and I suggested we just call it a morning at that point, so we gathered the rest of the kids and went home a little early.

We had lunch, and Scarlett settled down for a short nap, then Dave took the boys to the Y to swim. This sounds easy enough, but it was preceded by about an hour of, "Get your bathing suits," "I can't FIND my bathing suit!" "Where are the towels? Do we have any clean towels in the house at all?"...until they finally made it, and enjoyed about an hour there. Scarlett woke up just before they left, but we still had a girls' quiet time at home. We played a little, and made some homemade granola bars for an afternoon snack (subsituting peanut butter for the honey, and adding chocolate chips). When the boys got home, we all went out to the backyard, where Scarlett enjoyed a dip in her kiddie pool, I sat down with a book (which I hastily put away in a safe place after Chase dumped a bucket of water in my lap!), and Dave and the other kids played corn hole on the set Dave made. (This also sounds easy enough, but with a fiercely competitive oldest child, a second child who does his best to hold his own, and two younger boys who like to play by their own rules, this can get interesting. And sometimes loud.) Afterwards, we moved back inside, where Dave and the kids watched some baseball, and Scarlett and I entertained ourselves in various ways until it was time for dinner. After dinner clean-up we decided to go for a bike ride. Upon arriving home and realizing it wasn't too far from bedtime, Dave and I congratulated ourselves for having survived another Sunday, and all in a relatively pleasant way.

So what do you do to make your Sunday a good one?