Everyday Things are Necessary
We were having a team lunch and my boss asked each of us what we did over the weekend. My colleagues’ activities were pretty interesting. One went for pole dancing, another went for a concert, one went for a ballet show. When it was my turn to share, I said, “Please don’t ask me.” Then I still answered, “On Saturday, I spent two hours straight opening surprise eggs, putting back the surprise toy, closing the egg, and opening them again. And I did the shake shake shake.”
When I thought about it, I could not believe I spent two hours without interruption with egg surprises. Oh dear.
Then I also came to the realization how I value everyday things so much.
My husband and I are on the same page with this, I guess. We want to build our home like a sanctuary where our child/children have a place to come back to and spend hours with our lovely home. We don’t spend a lot of time outside (except on weekends) because we are trying to build a culture where our daughter could enjoy and consider our home as her happy place. Yeah anywhere can be a happy place as long as you are spending it with your family. Eh no, we strongly believe that home should be the number one happy place. The outside world can be secondary.
I cook every single day. No matter how tiring it may sound, I cook everyday for my family. I prepare my family’s meal because I want them to think that the best meal is cooked by none other than the queen of the family. Okay, I may sound a little too ambitious here; but I just want them to feel that coming home is something to look forward to because the wife/mother has prepared a special dish.
I bring my daughter to the supermarket. This has been a regular activity for us. Every time we go for grocery shopping, I give my daughter some small tasks like holding a pack of pasta, or checking our list just to make her feel involved. She looks forward to getting some small tasks done.
I DIY my daughter’s clothes, accessories, activities. I love do-it-yourself projects and I’m happy to have my daughter as the number one beneficiary of my craft. I explain to her what I do, and after I finish something, she loudly says “wow!”. I’m pretty sure she doesn’t even mean it, but my husband and I try to make her say “wow” even on the littlest of things so she’ll develop her appreciation and acceptance on small, but important things.
I take a lot of photos with us included in it. In as much as I want to take a photo of a beautiful scenery, without us in it, well, it doesn’t look beautiful at all. I take a lot of random photos of my daughter, but I pretty much love to include ourselves (my husband and myself) in the photos so we can show them to her when she grows up. I don’t want her to be asking us where we were and why we were not together in the photo.
My family dresses up with uniformity. This may sound annoying for some, but we take time and effort to dress up with uniformity because we don’t want to lose each other at the shopping mall. Okay, I kid. We just enjoy dressing up whenever we go to church. It’s our Lord’s day anyway, so we really try to make our best effort to make Him smile even on simple things.
Strolling at the park is a necessity. We are regulars at the park. When we moved in to our apartment, one of the things we considered is accessibility to outdoor activities. Our apartment building is surrounded by parks and playground.
I bring home something for my little one every single day. Whether it be some freebies, or a notepad, or gummy worms, I give her something to excite her and make her look forward to my getting home. It doesn’t have to be fancy.
We sing and dance a lot. We may look like a crazy family dancing in front of the mirror at Uniqlo’s shop, but who cares? Loud music means some graceful dancing.
These are the simple things in life that our family enjoys doing. Nothing fancy, nothing big, it’s the fun everyday things that keep us going.
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