Morning Play LIst, aka Morning Rituals

Morning Play List, aka Morning Rituals

It's 7:45 AM and I'm sitting alone at the kitchen table, forcing myself to eat a little breakfast. Today is our first "trial run" of our morning routine for school. We run our morning and evening routines the two weeks of summer camp that proceed school so we have a chance to fix our timings, add in essential missing elements, etcetera.

As I'm eating, Taylor Swift's "Never Grow Up" comes on. It's been on the playlist since the "Bigs" were the only kids in the house. And I'm still trying to preserve those last vestiges of innocence in the "littles." It's all just mind boggling.

I had so much fun updating my morning playlist recently, mostly inspired by Apple TV's Ted Lasso and Trying. My gosh, they have the best soundtracks. I recently added The Rolling Stones, "She's a Rainbow", and Sia's "Unstoppable" among others. Someone grumbled when I started up the playlist this morning, but it does actually help us all and a couple of songs later, sure enough there was a song he'd added to the mix. 

The playlist was born when the girls were school aged. We'd just returned home from a road trip and we had some road trip rituals: We'd eat breakfast, pack up the trailer, nestle the kids in the car, hook up, take off, and plug in a certain CD the girls loved to sing along to, which happened to be, Wee Sing America. We'd hit the first couple of songs in order and then had our favorites we'd skip around to before choosing an audio book or gazing out the window. 

When we got home, it occurred to me, maybe that type of ritual would help our mornings. We were homeschooling at the time and the girls had a hard time getting started some days because their mama had a lack of structure. We now know their mama has ADHD, but that's another story! I never mentioned the morning playlist, really just kind of did it for me, but started playing it every morning in the kitchen. Before long, our mornings smoothed themselves out. 

It's not magic, but works like it. We hear it, and subliminally, we move to the starting line. We take our marks. We get ready. We move through our routines. Please note, I am part of the "we." It helps me focus. If I'm up early, I don't usually turn on the playlist until my alarm goes off. I'm working or knitting or focused on a project. I'm not yet in "ready mode." The playlist turns it all on.

15 years later, the playlist has taken on a life of its own. Once someone mentioned they'd heard a particular song too much, so I took it off. A couple years later, someone mentioned the tone was "preachy. Ok. I do take feedback. It has morphed over time and sometimes a song, like the one from Sia just mentioned, comes up that just must be added. I don't worry about the length of the list. When we leave the kitchen, I turn it off. Sometimes we hear 15 songs and sometimes we hear 3, so it doesn't matter. On weekends, I start on track 6 or 8 just for fun. No one's ever noticed. Once, when my dad was dying and I'd had a pretty bumpy day at work, I played it while I cooked supper and no one even noticed; it was weirdly settling. 

Do you have playlists that help your family through its routines? If so, I'd love to hear about them them! Just for grins, I'll share our current version below, but know, it may not even be current by the time you read this! Cheers!

"Holy as a Day is Spent" (Carrie Newcomer)

"Souls like Wheels" (Avett Brothers)

"Never Grow Up" (Taylor Swift)

"Island Song" (Adventure Time)

"She's a Rainbow" (Rolling Stones)

"Unstoppable" (Sia)

"All About That Bass (Meaghan Trainor)

"Rise Up" (Andra Day)

"This Is Me" (Keala Settle)

"Beautiful" (Christina Aguilera)

"We are the Champions" (Queen)

"Somewhere Over the Rainbow" (Iz)

I'm Yours!

So first, some unsolicited advice:  If you want to be challenged, blessed and occasionally provoked, start following Erin Barrette Goodman's blog.  Enough said.

So it is Day Seven of the 10 Day Family Re-Charge.  Today we are thinking about the things that make us a family:  our anchor points, our traditions and our memories. 

 Friday is definitely an anchor point for us.  Quite often we watch a family movie on Friday, all huddled together on the sofas, with pillows, blankets and popcorn.  We all unwind together.

Church is an anchor.  We don't go to the same service time every week, but as much as possible, we get there together.  Sundays are "project day" in our house; it's when we do that sewing project, craft thingy or whatever we've been too busy the rest of the week to get to.  It's family day and rare that we run errands or play with friends away from home.  It's our gathering and centering time.

We have tons of family traditions because we are "those" people but I think our simple ones are the ones that our kids treasure the most.  By way of example, years ago to teach the girls to converse, we started a sort of formal table conversation.  Each person answers three questions:

• What was the best part of your day?
• What was the hardest part?
• What would you like a do-over for?

The Littles really don't quite get the whole thread, but they absolutely love having their very own turn to talk where no one interrupts and we all nod sagely as if we understand what they just said!  It provides us some really helpful insight into the big girls lives, too.  It is really connecting to make sure everyone gets some air time.

Another tradition or ritual is that I always check on the kids once they go to bed.  When I tuck the Littles in, I always say, "hasta mañana, see you in the morning" in a sing-songy voice followed by, "sweet dreams."  If I am distracted or interrupted and forget, they all shout it out to me, it matters. 

In the morning, when Dear Hubby heads to work, he has to kiss everyone who's up.  This can take some time, but we never skip it.  The little ones jostle for who gets that last kiss and then, ironically, they practically slam the door on him as he finally heads out. 

Our big traditions center around the obvious holidays, but also include Martin Luther King Day, New Year's Day Brunch (our anniversary), Valentine's Day bowling (and making our own Valentines).  The kids have also come to expect some Tom Foolery coming from Mama on April Fools.  I have come up with some doozies over the years and rest assured, I have some big plans for this year too!

When I was a kid, we did jigsaw puzzles on school holidays.  We'd set the puzzle up on a card table and people just sat down whenever they had the urge to put a few pieces in.  This is something we've done on occasion in this family and something I'll be more purposeful about in the future.  We also played a lot of board games and my "now" family used to have a family game night.  Where did that go?  Look for a come-back there, too!

I find it helpful sometimes to look closely at what it is that binds us together, the small things that say "I'm yours."  It's so easy to take those things for granted.  I can think of a few things, like "game night" that I want to re-institute and a few new things we may have room for.  My theory is, we can never spend too much time together or make too many memories. 

What are the little things you do that say, "I'm yours?"