Saturday Mornings

I love Saturday mornings.  For about a year now we have had pretty much the same routine in our house and I am perfectly fine with it.  It never gets old (at least not yet) and I look forward to it all the time.

Baby Girl wakes up between 6:15 and 6:45.  I groan at how early it is and then I get up to go to the bathroom while BJ goes in and collects the baby.  He brings her into our bed and holds her until I come out of the bathroom.  I climb back in bed and she just about breaks her neck to come over and snuggle with me.  The first few times we did this she fell back to sleep for anywhere from 30 to 90 minutes.  That was awesome but didn’t last too long.

We lay there for 15 to 30 minutes…just snuggling and hugging and talking.  She’ll point to things and I’ll tell her what they are, she’ll spring up and laugh and then fall down on me again.  I have to practically beg her to give daddy some snuggles, too.  She has turned into quite the mama’s girl in the mornings.

We eventually get up and I change her diaper and we head downstairs.  I grab her milk out of the fridge and we turn on the TV and snuggle up and watch one 30-minute cartoon.  Then I pass her off to BJ and go in the kitchen to make her breakfast.  She is wise to this and has started coming in the kitchen and getting under my feet.  Stinker.

While she’s eating, I clean the kitchen from the night before (I go on cleaning strike Friday nights because I’m tired and lazy and just want to do nothing) and grab a quick bite to eat.

After she eats I leave her in the living room to play with BJ while I get dressed and ready for the day.  She usually fills her diaper at this point so one of us will change her and then I’ll get her dressed.  By this time I’m about to start running around like a chicken with my head cut off because somehow time always FLIES by when I think I’m doing a good job of staying on track.

I pack up the diaper bag and load it and my purse and phone into the car, get her shoes on and rush out the door…late as usual.  Where are we going in such a rush, you ask?  We go to story time at the library on Saturday mornings.  It’s awesome.  We usually show up right as it’s starting but I’ve actually gotten a little bit better at getting us out of the house on time.  We only live about 7 or 8 minutes from the library so you would think I could get us there on time.

I love story time because it is something we can do together for years to come.  She loves going.  She dances and plays and acts silly and cuddles with me.  She used to be the youngest in attendance but more toddlers and babies have started coming.  I’m pretty sure I’m the oldest mother there but I don’t really care about that.  What matters is that we do this together and that she learns to love books and reading and singing and dancing as much as I do.

Story time is one of the few activities that occur on weekends for toddlers.  It’s almost impossible to find something for us to do on Saturday.  Almost everything that our county offers takes place during the week and during the day.  Just about everything is geared toward the stay at home mom.  This is great because I know that stay at home moms need activities to keep their kids busy and themselves sane.  The problem with that is that we working moms struggle to find things to do on the weekends.  Baby Girl would be just as happy to stay home and play all day and take TV breaks but I can’t do that.  I’m a mover and a shaker on Saturdays so I need to get out of the house.  Sunday is a different story.  I’m perfectly happy to lounge around and not do anything on Sunday.  But Saturday mornings…those mornings are the highlight of my weekend.  I’m sure I’m more excited to go to the library than Baby Girl is right now.  I think I'm more enthusiastic about these things because I never thought I'd get to do them.  I never thought I'd be a mom at the library so I'm sure I go overboard with the dancing and singing and such.  That's ok...she's too young to realize that I'm probably embarrassing her.  LOL

So yeah, I went from sleeping in on Saturday mornings to being woken up before the sun comes up and I couldn’t be happier about it.  I love our Saturday morning routine and I hope it’s something that we can continue for years to come.