Growing up I had always heard stories of people who basically "lived for the weekend." In this traditional view work during the week sucked out your soul, and on the weekend was the only time when you got enough of a break from the grind to survive it. Personally I never could completely understand this view, as I try to make every day enjoyable and often the weekend where even busier times when I would catch up on cleaning or other chores. But this year after Finn turned 4 suddenly my perspective changed and I found myself living for the weekends.
For a large part of the year the weather accommodated, as we had the coolest spring I can remember. That ended up leading to a legendary hot summer, but all of May was cool and we even had a few cool days in June which I planned to take advantage of. Despite starting it years ago my "Park Initiative" to see every park in Cedar Park/Leander was not completed, in fact this Spring I found some of my new favorite parks including a place with an amazing sandbox and another park close to the house with all the amenities we could want. Some parks I visited when he was younger had been refurbished, and so I felt motivated to see as many as I could and we even hit up to three new parks a day on some weekend days.
But the real change was in Finn. Unlike two years ago when he took on independence without regard for safety and I found myself often frustrated to do things with him this year its been the opposite. He now can fully communicate his intentions and is pretty good enough trying out everything at a park. His sense of wonder and willingness to explore takes me back to my own childhood feelings, and the concept that we haven't even fully explored what is around us is inspiring. Add in an In and Out burger and its the making of a perfect weekend.
Unfortunately now a historically hot summer is upon us so going to different parks isn't possible, but all the work to make our backyard better recently is paying off: the new sod, the new tree swing, the trampoline that took my six months to build combined with the huge trees in our yard give us a shaded option most of the day. This Sunday I decided to mow the back yard and Finn followed me around with his bubble mower, proving that he can be in the middle of almost everything I do on the weekend now.
So that is how I plan to spend the rest of the year: focused on the next weekend and the time I get to spend with him during what likely is my favorite life cycle for him so far.
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