Sunday Traditions

I dreaded our 1-4pm church schedule at first. Nothing like a three hour block of meetings right during the hungry, sleepy middle of the day, right? But we've found positives to accentuate. There's not much to be done for a cranky Thomas who doesn't get a nap, or a hungry Finley who wants to nurse the entire church block to compensate for not having her own bed to sleep in. But we can focus on the bliss of a slow and lazy Sabbath morning with plenty of time to get everyone ready. And after church we're free to divide and conquer: Grab the iPod, a few juice boxes and peanut butter crackers and we're off. One parent gets a quiet house to "get something done", or to nap, or read, or just quietly stare out the window. The other parent gets a few hours worth of the latest audio book from the iTunes store and a happy carload of kid's dying to hear what happens next, as we drive...wherever. Today I was the "other parent", the audio book was Flyte by Angie Sage, and the destination was the Beach. We don't play on the waves or make sandcastles on our little Sunday excursions. We just roll up our trousers or hike up our skirt tails and walk through the dunes of soft sand, make footprints in the wet beach line near the rising tide, and draw lines in the sand to play red light, green light. It's one of my very favorite Sunday traditions...just a little rejuvenation to cap of a pretty nice day.