Nothing special

February 26

Today flew by. Did we go outside? Yes, a little. Some fresh air, some bird watching, some running and trike riding. But the nice thing about going out every day is that it is just what we do. We don't have to have a plan or make it into something exceptional. This is our norm, nothing special. And because I've given myself permission to only be out for 15 minutes, some days that's it, 15 minutes and we are done. Back to whatever we were up to inside.

It was cold today and after a bit of driveway play we came inside, better off for having been out. Tomorrow is another day. Maybe something exceptional will happen or maybe it will just be another day of nothing special, I'll take it!

I used to experience a lot of guilt about not being outside enough. A beautiful day would come and I'd feel so terrible that we were not on a nature walk as soon as breakfast was over, playing at the park until lunch, and biking to the river in the afternoon. The beautiful day would unfold and I would feel like no matter how much of we enjoyed it was never enough. Short of camping out in the back yard, I always felt like I was wasting some of the day. But now I know that beautiful or dreary, we will be outside again tomorrow. We can be out for hours or for minutes. It is OK to take it in small chunks. The habit is important to me now, not the duration. The expectation that my kids have that we are going to play outside has changed the feeling of our days.