Family Time
by Jon Labrousse

1. Story Time

Pile pillows in the middle of the living room.  Brown, red, white, whatever.  Settle in and surround the family with books borrowed from the library.  Fresh books, books like bread hot out of the oven.  Books that burn your fingers, only adding to the anticipation.  Books that steam when you open them.  Read them aloud with your limbs in a tangle, all four of you, Mom's voice rising above the cicadas' chatter, Sister and Brother, silent, savoring every word, wondering what will happen next, giggling at Dad's sound effects.

2. Transit Time

Link wheels together in a train: one bike, one tag-along, and a trailer, to boot.  That's five wheels altogether and Mom on two more, riding alongside, hollering words of encouragement.  Add snacks to a juice-packed cooler to Brother's trailer.  Make a day of it.  Go ahead, hum along to Brother's superhero soundtrack. If you try to sing it, you'll just get it wrong.  Sister will know the name of every passing butterfly, so pay attention.  Don't decide where you're going until you get there.

3. Work Time

Mow the lawn, trim branches, and wheel a barrow around the backyard, picking up debris.  Chop, lop, saw, drag, dig.  Make the work go slower by adding six more hands and a second, miniature wheelbarrow, green with big, yellow eyes.  Lose your temper a couple of times about the pace and the trail of debris to the compost pile.  Calm down when you realize, once again, it's not the work that's important, it's the time you spend together.

4.  Dinner Time

Let Sister set the table.  She wants to help. Encourage her. Try to find a way to hide vegetables in the meal, so Brother will eat them. At the very least, come up with a good story explaining the superpowers bestowed by broccoli and ask Brother to provide the soundtrack for their heroic preparation. Wonder if you should be a little stricter about table manners, when neither Brother nor Sister can sit still through the meal, and when the conversation is so overwhelmed by laughter and antics that someone spills their milk.  Wonder aloud who's going to clean up the mess under the table.  Be thankful for what you have received.

5. Down Time

Don't feel bad about doing nothing.  Declare it down time and leave it up to the family to chill. On their own.  Weather-permitting, you can do it in the backyard, in a hammock-chair, with whatever book's been on the back burner while you do dishes, make meals, do dishes, etcetera.  Make room in your hammock for co-reading kids with their own books, if need be, or look the other way when the Legos take over the living room, and reams of printer-paper, covered with pretty pictures have most certainly not gone to waste.  Make a scrapbook during Art Time and cut and collect the best of the pictures together.  Take digital photos of Lego landscapes.  Share your stories.

6. Party Time

Live life from birthday to birthday, anticipating the celebration.  Dress the whole family up as pirates, complete with eye-patches and parrots.  Make the birthday boy follow a map to find his booty in x-marked spots around the house: bagged ingredients for a birthday cake you'll bake together.  Sing your hearts out as many times as the birthday boy wants you to re-light the candles.  Leave the streamers and the banner up until the next birthday.  Play with the balloons in the living room.

7. Art Time    

It's going to be messy.  Get over it.  Control the chaos by taking on one project at a time: crayons, clay, paints, you name it.  Once in a while, let go.  Go crazy.  Put it all on the table and see what happens.  The most important thing is to stick around.  Be present.  Brother and Sister are going to want to show you what they're doing as their stories grow.  It may not happen if you miss it.

8. Trail Time

Buy books with the pictures and names of bugs and birds, and spend a lot of time outside.  They'll find you.  When they do, Sister will know where to look, and before you know it, she'll be carrying the books with her every time you strap on your boots and head for the woods.  Spend weekends slow-going up mountain trails, picking up clear quartz from strewn gravel, holding out fingers for dragonfliesÖ  Sometimes, you'll have to carry Brother back down the mountain, if you go too far, but that's what Dad's back is for.

9. Snow Time

Call the kids in sick on snow days when the schools stay open.  You should call in sick, too.  Head for deep snow with a sled, bodies wrapped in bundles of clothes.  Don't forget the thermos.  Roll snowballs so big the whole family, together, can no longer roll them.  Find fast hills and pack them down with the sled until you're going so fast the snow glows.  Snowmen get lonely, so build a party: goofy snow-people with arms snow-packed on sticks, gesticulating.  Dance around.  Sing!  Give them something to laugh about when you leave.

10. Wake-up Time

Get used to not getting enough sleep.  It starts at birth, of course, and you'll hope it gets better.  In some ways it does, but you'll never sleep the same; you should know that.  Don't stay up too late on weekends. You'll be grumpy. Learn to look forward to the early morning wake-up call, when Brother and Sister pounce into your bed for the day's first family roll-around.  Go ahead and buy a king-sized bed, when there's no longer room in the queen.  Try not to think too hard about what that means.