October 28, 2025 • 33 mins
In today's episode, Laura and Sarah share a 5-part formula for crafting a weekend that you truly enjoy -- or that at least contains some elements you enjoy! They acknowledge the struggle (it's real!) of weekends feeling like a lot of work during the infant/toddler years and provide suggestions that might help in that era, plus plenty of discussion of how you might built more enjoyment into your weekends during this school aged/teen years.
In the Q&A, a listener asks for thoughts on getting a weekend babysitter for a few hours even if one works a full time job during the week.
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
love our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing in late October of twenty twenty five.
We are going to be talking about creating great weekends.
We feel that weekends are an important part of life.
They can also be a complicated part of life if
you have little kids, and so we want to start
this episode with a bit of a caveat here, which
(01:04):
is that, to be totally transparent, I am so much
happier with my weekends now than when my kids were
very little, because it is actually possible to relax when
no one has to be watched every minute. When I
have older kids who can do quick babysitting so I
don't have to like load three kids in the car
to go anywhere. When they are capable of entertaining themselves
(01:28):
for big chunks of time, there's just so much more
opportunity to relax and not have to think through absolutely
every single minute and who is on top of the
two year old and all that good stuff. So I
almost feel like weekends need to be two separate topics
depending on whether you have little kids versus older kids.
(01:50):
I mean, if you are in the little kid stage, though,
I want to start by saying, it probably will get
better in a few years and pretty soon you don't
have five kids over twelve years, right, right, Sarah.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I just did the math for myself. I'm like, okay,
so I had eleven years of that since my kids
are a six year spread.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, yeah, I had.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
A seventeen years of having a kid under age five.
But yes, we're out of it now.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, and I guess, I mean, we're going to get
to this later. But the only real way to recreate
the feeling of having not having a little kid that
you are following around keeping safe is to have somebody
else help you with that in an air tight and
very fully reliable way, so you're not like half there
and we'll talk about strategies for that later. But I
(02:36):
do feel like that's the only thing that can really
allow for the same kind of relaxed feeling. And even
even that is even still stressful because you're like, but
what if they get a cold and then it doesn't
actually happen, And I've been looking forward to my little
rest but all week and then I have to cancel it.
So I get it, like there's almost no way around it.
But I do agree with Laura that things do get better,
and I do agree with you that like when the
(02:57):
youngest one is around, it helps, although both of us,
I think are influenced by our current situations, which also
involves having maybe some older helpers around, so you know,
have more kids, you have.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
To get through them.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
But yeah, I mean, there was definitely a point where
your weekends got more relaxing one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Like I feel like I even did wake up one
day and be like, huh, I used to be so
excited sometimes on Monday morning when the help would arrive
to rescue me, because the weeks truly felt easier because
I had this extra person around who could really absorb
a lot of the parenting responsibilities. That felt so twenty
four to seven versus the weekend, when even if my
(03:41):
husband was helping, I felt like I was very much
in it. And then one day it was like, oh, actually,
the weekends are something that I am finding to be
the more relaxing piece. Although Laura, I was thinking about
this and I'm like, one other sort of angle to
that is, I think the weeks have gotten harder. So
I mean harder in some ways and easier in some ways. Yes,
it's true out like rocking and screaming maybe to sleep
(04:01):
and worrying about pumping during the day, but like our
nights are later, we're doing sports picks ups at nine o'clock,
and so the weeks in some ways feel more hectic,
and then the weekends are like ah yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
But with that, we would like to note that there's
a lot of literature out there that talks about the
idea that they start with is that the work week
is stressful and the work the weekend is relaxing. And
I feel like all of that needs to have an
asterisk by it being like if you don't have small kids,
or given that some of this seems to be written
(04:35):
for men who probably do have small kids. The assumption
is that somebody else is fully responsible for them, so
that you can relax on the weekend, even if you
are helping, to put in quotes, your spouse is the
one who is making sure that the two year old
is constantly being supervised. You just walk away, Like you
want to brush your teeth after dinner, you just go
(04:56):
do it. You want to go deal with something in
the yard, you just go do it, which which is.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Not really fair.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
And so yeah, absolutely, I'm not going to like name
the specific planner, but there was some planner that talked
about like weekend rejuvenation rituals, and I had it when
my kids were little, and I used to be like, uh, yeah, yeah,
this was not designed for me.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So yeah, well, and so if you believe that your
spouse is the one who's going to keep your toddler
from sticking a fork in the eye, then yeah, of
course you can relax.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
You can.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You know, it feels like I think you and I
have felt when we had our nannies.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
There.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah, so keep in mind that many men seem to
have that all the time, and we can have a
whole separate discussion about that. But anyway, we will just
say that as the beginning of our weekend discussion.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Moving on and save that for another fun soapbox episode.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
So, yes, the soapbox we get on occasionally.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Anyway we want to talk about I think it was
a five part formula for a great weekend in this episode.
The first one, of course, you will not be surprised
to hear that both Sarah and I believe in planning
your weekends.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
And I think sometimes people think.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Planning gets a bad reputation because they think you are
planning things that you don't want to do. But here's
the thing, you are going to do the things that
you have to do. My guess is that if you
are a responsible parent, you're going to make sure your
eight year old gets to a soccer tournament. You are
going to make sure that the laundry gets done. You
are going to make sure that you know if somebody
was supposed to practice the piano twice, they do it.
(06:29):
Planning the weekends is not about making sure those things happen.
It's about making sure you still have time for things
that you want to do, and that there are things
in the weekend that you are genuinely looking forward to
that you have thought through your downtime to make it
more enjoyable for you. So my strategy for that is
(06:49):
to double plan my weekends. And this is a function
of when I do my weekly planning, I tend to
do it on Thursday or Friday looking forward to the
next Monday to Sunday week And so as I am
planning on Thursday or Friday, I am lightly planning the
weekend that is eight to nine days in the future.
But because I am then planning on Thursday and Friday,
(07:10):
I can also look at the weekend that is immediately
coming up and tighten the plan based on has the
weather changed, has something else come up? Is there open
space we'd like to do something in. Does it look
like this kid isn't doing anything this weekend, Maybe I
should see if they could meet up with a friend.
But it allows you to plan a little bit more
(07:32):
tightly having planned lightly for the weekend.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Eight to nine days in the future.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
So this is where I am going to confess this
is an episode that I need as much as one
that I am participating in now, because I haven't done
a great job with this in the past, because there
was a time I was very very on it. I think,
especially when my kids were little, and I had the
necessity of like very intentionally protecting part of my time
in order to fit things in. But I will say
(07:57):
in recent years, I have gotten more lax with this,
and I'm in a little bit of a transitional phase.
In that last year, so many of our weekends were
anchored by sports events for Cameron because he was just
on a soccer team that played constantly, and now we
don't have that, so because he's taking a year off
or maybe forever off, but definitely this year off from
(08:19):
doing that. And so I just feel like I'm faced
with a lot of new weekend planning challenges. And the
school year is still fairly young as we're recording this,
and I don't feel like I have my planning groove
back on to the point where I was actually talking
about it with the kids in the car that like,
hey remember our weekends when we used to like do
more fun stuff. What happened to that? So this is
(08:39):
a work in progress. But I will say my planning
ritual is generally to do my planning on Sunday. That
is my like I sit there, I do what I
call the week on the board, you know, I fill
in the whole board for next week, figure out where
the activities are, and I do include the following weekend.
So I am starting to think through like do we
have a birthday party? Do we have something fun? But
I haven't done a lot of what you were just
talking about, and I absolutely miss it. Whether that is
(09:01):
my own stuff, and sometimes that's already in there, which
is great, and I put it on the board and
I get to think about it and it's fun or
stuff that involves me and the kids, but it's still
fun for maybe everyone, like visiting some local farm or
something like that that, like I know, will be have
some elements of pleasantness, even if, of course every moment
isn't going to be bliss. So yeah, my method is
(09:22):
to do it on Sunday, and that gives me enough.
You know, I have about six days in advance to
plan up to the next weekend. Although I love your
double planning method, I just don't tend to do a
lot of my home type of planning during the week
these days, just because of the way my work calendar flows.
And so I think I could do what you're doing,
I just need to do more of it. When I
do that Sunday planning.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well, when do you tighten up the weekend r I
mean because I assume that like stuff comes up in
the course of the week that will need to then
happen on the weekend.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Every once in a while it does. It's more like
stuff will just get slotted into where there's already blank space,
and you know, I'll write it on the board and
talk about it with the kids. But that's much more
like what falls into my lap, like oh, a kid
gets invited to this more impromptu thing, and much less
of like let's all do this thing. And again, I
(10:13):
think that's what we're missing, but I don't know that
that has happened later. I think we could even have
things tentatively done by the Sunday. We can always move them,
but having some ideas in place would be good. I
do tend to plan my like pilates, so like anything
that needs to be reserved in advance that would be
like fun for me or that I enjoy. I'm still
doing that.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah, well you know this, we're pivoting.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
And they said, this discussion of the things you plan
in which you know, I like to talk about anchor
events for your weekend or one big adventure and one
little adventure.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
But all of this is something to adjust.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
As your kids get older, because they're not going to
want to do all of these things with you, right,
But you could start to revisit this, like, oh wait,
I can choose things for myself, right, And especially if
you have older kids who probably will be around and
taking care of your younger kids isn't a huge ask.
And especially you know, if your youngest kid is maybe
(11:08):
eight or nine, and you have a thirteen year old,
a fifteen year old whatever, they're not having to do
hands on babysitting for that person. You can start putting
in your own stuff even if other people don't want
to do things. But we'll talk about that in a
minute when we come back from our first ad break. Well,
(11:36):
we are back talking all things weekends. We've been talking
about anchor events, and I think when we have little kids,
we think about, Okay, we're going to put in a
trip to the zoo today, we are going to put
in a trip to the aquarium today. Now there becomes
a point where the kids absolutely do not want to
go to the zoo or the aquarium with you. This
sounds like the worst possible thing in the world. Sometimes
(11:56):
they would have a good time if they went. We
have certainly convinced some children to do things like this,
but you have to sort of keep your expectations in
check for that. But generally you want to ask yourself
going into the weekend, what do I want to remember
from this weekend? Is there something I'm going to do
this weekend that if people were saying, hey, Sarah, how
(12:17):
is your weekend, you would say on Monday morning, you know, oh, yeah,
this is what we did this weekend, or this is
what I did this weekend. So what is that thing
going to be? And you can plan in a small
number of those things over the course of the weekend
that you would be excited about. So, what are some
recent anchor events or adventures.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
That you have had, Sarah?
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Recent anchor events? Well, last weekend, we actually had a
fun work event and it was on a Friday night,
which is not my typical evening of going out, but
they threw this sizeable party and I was determined to
do it and I did. I actually went straight from work.
I brought an outfit with me so I could change
out of my scrubs, and that is that did turn
out to be like a really memorable part of the weekend.
(13:01):
I guess amusing last weekend as an example. My other
bink anchor was impromptu and I did not plan it.
But on Sunday morning, I realized that it was Taylor
Swift's release movie, and why would I not go to that?
So I just said to the kids, like, who would
like to come with me? And I got one taker
and I took her with me and we had a
great time. So that was an example of one where
(13:24):
I didn't do a ton of planning ahead. I mean,
obviously I had that invitation for a while sitting there,
but I was able to carve out some fun things.
So I guess that's my best example of a recent weekend.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Yeah, maybe that the work event was your like big
Adventure in the Taylor Swift movie is like your Little
Adventure or something like that, if we're going.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
To look at that rubric.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah, I would say that the work event was at
a totally new venue and it was not something we
do all the time, So I think I get Big
Adventure for that one. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Well, I was thinking back to some previous weekends I did.
Oh a couple WEEKDS ago, I went to a Phillies
game on Friday. It was actually some friends had rented
out a suite for a birthday party, so that was
a lot of fun. And then biked Valley Forage with
some of my kids on one of the days. Another
recent weekend, I went to Longwood Gardens, you know, on
a solo trip. Actually again because you could do your
(14:14):
own solo adventures. You don't have to get people to
come with you, if you don't have to not do
things even if nobody else wants to do anything. And
went out to dinner with a friend. Another weekend, I
went apple picking with Ruth. That required some bribery to
get her to do with me, but we had a
good time. And then I went to Chanticlare, which is
another botanical garden. This past weekend I sang in a concert,
(14:36):
so that was kind of a big adventure. We did
family brunch with all seven of us because Jasper was
home visiting for the weekend. So lots of little things
that are fun to do. But you know, those are
examples of things you would say you remembered from the weekend,
right Like I could look back and say, oh, yeah,
that's what I did that weekend, And if you were
going to have this conversation on Monday totally.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And I like your thought about the time slots, and
I think there was a time. So the timeslots that
you've had done on the weekend or like Friday night,
Saturday day, Saturday after an internight, Sunday day, Sunday night,
you don't have to have something huge planned for all
of those. In fact, I would argue that for most
people that would be too much to have like five
big slotted things. But maybe if you have two of them,
(15:15):
like one's a big adventure, one's a little adventure, and
a lot of the rest is purposeful down time and
maybe a little bit of depending on when you do
your kind of household rejuvenation stuff, one block of like
okay at grocery shop, I get ready for the week,
confine it to a block so it's not taking over
your entire weekend. But there can be a balance there,
And I think taking the intimidation out of I have
(15:36):
to plan every minute or have every single one of
them have something big and memorable in them will take
the pressure off of some people who might just find
this to seem like a lot.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, yeah, but it could.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Be little things and I think I had originally started
thinking of this because you know, when you have little kids,
you have the nap, So when you have to do
something before the nap, right, get out and do your
adventure for the day, then come on minutes. Then you
always want to have a little something for after the
nap because otherwise, when the beltdown happens, it's only four
o'clock and you've got hours till bedtime. So if you
can push that forward a little bit and have something
(16:07):
that's distracting everyone, that that can be great.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
But yeah, that's the worst slot. I agree with you
with the post map pre dinner. Oh, especially if you
have a partner that's like working that day and is
maybe not going to come home for dinner or is
going to be late, Like oh my gosh, you need something.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah yeah, but you know, Friday night, even having an
intention for Friday night, if if that's like a fun
dinner with your family, you're going to make or a
special dessert, something to welcome the weekend in.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
And then I would also be Nightriday.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, careful about actually thinking of if there is something
you would like to do on Sunday evening.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
And now I know that Sunday evening is like a
work night, right.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
You know, it's a school night, as we say, so
it won't be late, and it probably won't be elaborate.
But having something you are looking forward to on Sunday
evening can actually help with those Sunday scaries that sometimes
people get because instead of spending all of Sunday afternoon
thinking about Monday morning, you're spending Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Thinking about whatever fun thing you are doing on Sunday evening.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So that can be a way to make your weekends
a little bit more enjoyable too.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Another idea we.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Talked about adventures, and these can be your own adventures too,
But make sure you plan in some me time. So
what do you want to do for you this weekend,
and specifically, are there are times you're going to exercise,
like what sort of exercise do you think you are
going to do? Is there a hobby you want to
make space for? And also do you have things that
(17:27):
you are consciously choosing to do during any downtime? And
I think it helps to go into your weekend with
a little bit of intention about this, because otherwise it's
very easy to just read headlines half heartedly. Check email,
scroll around on social media, put her around the house
half heartedly picking things up, but not really because you know,
you kind of go to another room and then there's
something that needs to be put away, and then you
(17:48):
go to another room and there's something that you never
really relax. So you want something compelling to do during
your downtime, you know, good idea. Maybe too, if you
go to the library, do this sort of late in
the week so you have your new books ready for
the weekend.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
You're a bookstore if you're doing that.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Or maybe it's that if you like to do puzzles,
you're sure you have one going for the weekend, or
whatever it is. You've laid in a good stack of magazines,
how about you, Sarah.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Yeah, reading is a huge one. I feel like if
I have a fiction book that I'm into, I often
look forward to just having a block of time or
I'm going to be in my bed with that book
and maybe like finish it or read forty percent of
it or something like that. And that usually happens while
my kids are playing video games, let's be real, that's what,
or doing homework depending on what people have do the
(18:31):
next day, So that tends to be one of my
sort of big defaults. Another thing which I'm experimenting with
that is new is I just got a print subscription
to the New York Times, so that kind of like
it's there. And then on Sunday mornings, if you want
to have a relaxed morning, you bring the print thing
to the table, you have your coffee, and I mean
for me, I mostly like read book reviews, but that's fun.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, well then you know what books you're gonna read.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
And again, this is something that would just not work
if you have an eighteen month old, right, like, yeah,
you know, you're trying to sit there and read your
coffee and they're screaming.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
You have to get up and get something for them.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
And then you know, it's just aggravating to the nth
degree to like want to relax and not be able to.
And so again we have to have different expectations, like
when you have little kids, your weekends are gonna be
planned around what you're gonna.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Do that's fun for them.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And then if you want downtime, which your course, you're
gonna want downtime, you need to actively plan it in
like you trade off with your partner.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Okay, you get Sunday morning to do your thing.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I get Saturday morning to do my thing, or we
each take three hours on Saturday afternoon and do our
own thing and then we you know, even I think
it would be a good idea to map out who
is on with the little kids when you're all in
the house, right so that mom, because let's be real,
it's going to be mom who would be the default
in most cases, can in fact relax at the house
because she knows that somebody is actively on with the
(19:51):
kid and that's got to be mapped out. But you
don't if they are not little kids anymore.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
And I would put on huge encouragement to if you
do map something like this out, try to leave. And
I know you heard me talk about lying in my
bed and reading books, and that's what you really want
to do. You're tired, and you're like, but you can't.
It's very unlike you're gonna hear screams, You're gonna hear fights,
Like it's gonna be better. See what you can think
of that would be relaxing and rejuvenating if that's what
you're looking for that is not in your home. One
(20:21):
thing to think about would be an exercise class that
does not feel like hard work or torture like a
yin yoga class, for example, it's like, you know what,
you're gonna get to be quiet and lay on pillows
and you'll be left alone, or going to Starbucks for
an hour and getting your favorite drink and reading a
book or something like that, because if you have had
this discussion of a swap, you want to make the
(20:43):
most of those hours and it's just going to probably
be difficult if you're staying in your own home. If
they're home now, if they.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Left, great, Yeah, then you get to do what you
want at home, which is even better, Sarah. You like
to do some baking projects sometimes, right, Like this is
a thing that happens on weekends.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Yeah, this is a fit really common thing on and
this you know when your kids are like not eighteen months,
but maybe like four or five and older, you know,
in that age group where you know, this could potentially
be something that you do as a something to do
after nap time kind of a thing that also is
somewhat productive because hey, you'll have those pumpkin muffins for
the morning or whatever you decide to put together. But
(21:21):
I like it even more when I can do it
by myself.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, yeah, it's relaxing. Cooking by yourself can be relaxing.
Cooking with people underfoot not so much.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
With this.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
One idea is that you could choose things that are
that could be chores, like cooking or baking, but you
can do them for fun. However, most of us do
have some sort of chores we have to do on
the weekend, So with that, you might want to set
a small window for doing those things so they are
not always possibilities. Right, So we're a big fan of
(21:52):
like outsourcing housekeeping, getting groceries delivered or anything like that.
But if you are doing those things, maybe you say, okay,
we clean house from ten thirty to noon on Saturday morning.
Everyone participates outside of that, we are not cleaning the house,
and you will probably get the things that most had
to happen done during that time. And then you know,
(22:13):
if you're finding yourself looking at a dirty floor on
Friday night, you're not spending all of Friday night cleaning
out because you know there's a time for that Saturday
morning and most of the things will get done.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Then, Yeah, compartmentalizing sounds awesome. I definitely think if you're
looking for kid participation in any chores and your kids
are older again, then that eighteen month window, having a
deal that they have to pick up XYZ before they
turn on their game of choice can be incredibly effective.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Yeah, and with that, we often have these projects we
want to get done on the weekend. We're like, oh, well,
this is the time I'm going to clean out the garage,
this is the time that I'm going to organize everyone's
winter clothes or whatever it is. And that's fine because again,
you probably are going to do it on the weekend
and not during the week. However, you want to make
sure that you only bite off the amount you can
(22:57):
chew on a weekend and the amount that's not going
to make you feel stressed and like you are a
failure when you don't finish it. So I would suggest
making yourself a very short weekend to do list, like
the things that absolutely have to happen, and you can
do one thing beyond maybe two if it's a low
key weekend, but one or two things beyond basic life maintenance.
(23:19):
So yeah, you know you're gonna do the laundry and
grocery shopping. But if there is one or two other
small things you are going to do. Set that as
a goal for yourself, and then only do that, and
then you'll accomplish it and you'll feel good. So a
previous weekend, I decided I was going to clean off
the shelves in the upstairs movie room. Right, they'd gotten
really cluttered over the course of the past year with
nobody putting things away.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
So I went and did that. They look better. That
was my thing for the weekend. Nothing else.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
I did that with my book decluttering, like you know,
I'm trying to organize and declutter key areas, and putting
an entire room on my list for the Sunday would
have made me do absolutely nothing. But I'm like, oh,
I'm going to do is go to my bookshelf and
figure out what books I'm ready to donate.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
And I did it there and they're diaty.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Go, they're in the garage, they're out of the house,
so we're good.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
And if you have a big project, you're like, we
have to clean out the garage. Spread it over like
six weekends, right and look at it. Shine a specifical task. Yes,
this idea shelf is this weekend, that shelf is next weekend.
This pile on the floor is the next weekend, and
you will get through it and you will not feel overwhelmed.
We're gonna take one more quick ad break and then
we will be back with more on making good weekends. Well,
(24:34):
we are back talking all things weekends, how to create enjoyable,
relaxing weekends, with the caveat, of course, that our youngest
children are now at the age where they don't have
to be constantly supervised. So if you have young kids,
we understand that weekends are not automatically relaxing, and there
are certain strategies you can do consciously trading off with
(24:55):
your partner or hiring childcare for a few hours. We'll
discuss that more in a little bit. But you can
also have the mindset that I should enjoy my weekends
and this goes a long way toward making weekends more enjoyable.
Pursuing pleasure and consciously pursuing pleasure is really a two
step process. I mean one, you want to solve any
(25:15):
pain points. Is there anything you can do that you
find on weekends very painful that you can solve? So?
Are you driving all day to kids sporting events? According
to your plan? That you're looking at, Well, do you
need to do that? Can you spread that around with
other people? Can you skip one of them?
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Is there something that could happen or is there something
fun you can do there? Like is there a cool
bookstore that's nearby the soccer place that you could spend
your time there or go for a run while you're
there instead of just feeling like you've lost your entire
weekend to this.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Yeah, I definitely think this is where trade offs come
in as well. If you know that there are a
couple of kid birthday parties and two parents, then you
are not maybe two of them is going to make
the weekend feel like too much, but one of them
would be okay. Then embrace the socialista, so the one
you choose to go to, and then figure out how
you can swap off for the other one.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
I mean, maybe there's one that, like you would be
particularly more excited about doing than you know your spouse
doesn't hate chuck E cheese.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
I don't know, whatever you can work out between the
two of you.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
And you can also you solve the pain points and
then also come up with little ways you can up
the pleasure factor.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Like, what are you eating on the weekend? Have you
thought through your meals?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Like are there good things to eat in your house
so you're excited about like your Saturday morning breakfast?
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Right, you're not just you know, eating cold cereal again?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Or something we talked about having good things to read,
Like if it's pretty outside, are you going to get
outside at some point? Are you listening to fun music
while you're in the car, Like do you have something
good to listen to? You know what you want to
listen to? Like, think about ways you can push a
little bit more pleasure into the crevices of your weekend.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Yeah, even a favorite show that you're going to watch,
or I don't know, if you have to take a
kid to Target to get thing? Can you spend ten
minutes in this section of your choice, like maybe looking
at all the stationary and planners for next year? You
know things like.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
That could be done. Sounds fun? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
No, I mean when you do all these things, you
know you plan ahead when you consider the anchor advents
or adventures you want to be talking about that you
remember on Monday morning when you going through my list here,
Oh my goodness. When you plan in me time, you
think through your downtime, you compress your chores and errands,
and then you consciously pursue pleasure. You can have really
(27:33):
awesome weekends, and we want that for everyone listening to this.
So today's question is related to this, though, which is
that somebody wrote in that I work full time, and
not coincidentally, we also have full time childcare. Is it
okay to hire a babysitter for a few hours on
the weekend. I know it might be okay for the
occasional date night, but what about like regularly during the day.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
I feel guilty about this, Sarah, what do you think?
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Oh my gosh, Well, I love your answer, but I
will just tell you that I used to do this
I don't need to do it anymore again, because I'm
at a different stage. But there was a time in
my life when I fairly regularly would get someone from
like I don't know, ten to two or something like
that on a Saturday, especially if Josh was on call,
so I knew there was like really no switching off
to be had, And oh my gosh, the difference that
those few hours made in my happiness was immense. The
(28:23):
difference that those hours made in my children's life was
zero or maybe even positive because they got a break
from me, they had fun with their babysitter, they got
to do something else, and the idea looking back on
having like really any in trepidation about that. It seems
so crazy because also, like doing the math, Laura's teaches
us how many hours we have, and four hours out
(28:44):
of your whole weekend is not even that significant, but
it's gonna feel significant if it's a difference between you
having no time for yourself and you having time too.
I used to go to it's not even open anymore,
but I used to go to a fly bar at
bar class. I felt all fancy. That was an example
of a fitness class that wasn't torture. So it was like,
I'm getting out of the house, I'm doing something for myself,
and it's also not even that hard, so it's just fun.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, I mean, obviously, if you're not seeing your kid at.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
All during the week, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
If you're one of those people who is in fact
gone constantly and all that, then maybe you probably should
focus your weekends on spend family time. But I'm guessing
very few people listening to this fall into that category,
and hiring a few hours sitter for a few hours
on a weekend can be life changing. I mean, obviously,
trading off with your spouse is a very straightforward thing
to do and cost nothing, and so most people can
(29:34):
avail themselves of that immediately in order to.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Get more meat time.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Now, if that doesn't work for whatever reason, or if
you too want to spend some time together which is
also allowed, which is also allowed, then this is where
bringing in somebody else can be helpful. And I would
point out that many people who live near grandparents, and
if the grandparents want to be helpful like and drop
the kids off at Grandma's for a few hours and
get that time together, if you don't have that available, again,
(30:01):
the paid help is just approximating either your spouse, your
extended family, or anything like that. If those things are
not available to you, So yeah, go for it. I mean,
you might want to think about when would be most strategic.
I mean, obviously, sometimes sitters like to have enough hours
to make it worth their while, So maybe you might
(30:22):
do something like three o'clock to nine o'clock on Saturday,
right so you would miss the post nap meltdown, they'd
get fresh blood in there for that.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
You could go.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Work out, or you guys each could go see a
friend and then you meet up for dinner or a
movie afterwards and have your Saturday night date. And that
would be a great way to feel like you really
got a weekend and that Saturday was fun as opposed
to being all the work of caring for children, because again,
I mean it's fun. Like, we love babies, we have
a ton of them, but they are a lot of work,
and especially if you are the person who's primarily caring
(30:55):
for them, they are a lot of work and you
wind up with very little time to relax, and people
need time to relax.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
That's one of the things that make people feel most stressed.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Totally agree, So we give you a full permission slip signed.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah, exactly, exactly, all right, So love of the week
mine is I'm going to say kids who are old
enough to babysit, because it so makes the logistics easier.
I'm pondering, I mean, we just need a lot more
help if we didn't have that now. But the fact
that you can like leave most of my kids by
themselves for a bit, and two of them who are
(31:28):
home right now can be left in charge of others.
It makes everything so much easier to figure out, which
I appreciate it totally.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Well, mine is something simple, But I don't want to
take this for granted. I love reservations like the fact
that you can make sure to even book online, not
even have to talk to anyone, and then know that
you're going to have like a table big enough for
your family at a restaurant at a time you guys
want to eat. That is so nice because the alternative
is so frustrating, and so yeah, I embrace it, good
(32:00):
old reservation and I guess we'll add to that apps
like resi or open Table.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Now.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
I know they're not always the best thing for restaurants
because sometimes they have to give a portion of whatever,
But if you haven't made a reservation and it's Saturday
night and you have five people or more in your
family so it's like harder to find a table, you
can look to see who has a table available and
actually book it on your phone while you're driving around,
saving yourself the heartache. So I have both of those
apps on my phone. I use them, and I love it.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, technology is great for having a sufficient information to
make decisions.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Which is very efficient. Love it all right? Well, this
has been best of both worlds.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
We've been talking about how to fall in love with
your weekends again. We will be back next week with
more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
This has been the best of both worlds podcasts.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Please join us next time for more.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
I'm making work and life work together.
Hi.
Speaker 2 (00:09):
I'm Laura Vanderkamp. I'm a mother of five, an author, journalist,
and speaker.
Speaker 3 (00:15):
And I'm Sarah Hart Hunger, a mother of three, practicing physician,
writer and course creator. We are two working parents who
love our careers and our families.
Speaker 2 (00:24):
Welcome to best of both worlds. Here we talk about
how real women manage work, family, and time for fun,
from figuring out childcare to mapping out long.
Speaker 1 (00:33):
Term career goals.
Speaker 2 (00:34):
We want you to get the most out of life.
Speaker 1 (00:41):
Welcome to best of both worlds. This is Laura.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
This episode is airing in late October of twenty twenty five.
We are going to be talking about creating great weekends.
We feel that weekends are an important part of life.
They can also be a complicated part of life if
you have little kids, and so we want to start
this episode with a bit of a caveat here, which
(01:04):
is that, to be totally transparent, I am so much
happier with my weekends now than when my kids were
very little, because it is actually possible to relax when
no one has to be watched every minute. When I
have older kids who can do quick babysitting so I
don't have to like load three kids in the car
to go anywhere. When they are capable of entertaining themselves
(01:28):
for big chunks of time, there's just so much more
opportunity to relax and not have to think through absolutely
every single minute and who is on top of the
two year old and all that good stuff. So I
almost feel like weekends need to be two separate topics
depending on whether you have little kids versus older kids.
(01:50):
I mean, if you are in the little kid stage, though,
I want to start by saying, it probably will get
better in a few years and pretty soon you don't
have five kids over twelve years, right, right, Sarah.
Speaker 3 (02:02):
I just did the math for myself. I'm like, okay,
so I had eleven years of that since my kids
are a six year spread.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Yeah, yeah, I had.
Speaker 2 (02:08):
A seventeen years of having a kid under age five.
But yes, we're out of it now.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
Yeah, and I guess, I mean, we're going to get
to this later. But the only real way to recreate
the feeling of having not having a little kid that
you are following around keeping safe is to have somebody
else help you with that in an air tight and
very fully reliable way, so you're not like half there
and we'll talk about strategies for that later. But I
(02:36):
do feel like that's the only thing that can really
allow for the same kind of relaxed feeling. And even
even that is even still stressful because you're like, but
what if they get a cold and then it doesn't
actually happen, And I've been looking forward to my little
rest but all week and then I have to cancel it.
So I get it, like there's almost no way around it.
But I do agree with Laura that things do get better,
and I do agree with you that like when the
(02:57):
youngest one is around, it helps, although both of us,
I think are influenced by our current situations, which also
involves having maybe some older helpers around, so you know,
have more kids, you have.
Speaker 1 (03:13):
To get through them.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
But yeah, I mean, there was definitely a point where
your weekends got more relaxing one hundred percent.
Speaker 3 (03:20):
Like I feel like I even did wake up one
day and be like, huh, I used to be so
excited sometimes on Monday morning when the help would arrive
to rescue me, because the weeks truly felt easier because
I had this extra person around who could really absorb
a lot of the parenting responsibilities. That felt so twenty
four to seven versus the weekend, when even if my
(03:41):
husband was helping, I felt like I was very much
in it. And then one day it was like, oh, actually,
the weekends are something that I am finding to be
the more relaxing piece. Although Laura, I was thinking about
this and I'm like, one other sort of angle to
that is, I think the weeks have gotten harder. So
I mean harder in some ways and easier in some ways. Yes,
it's true out like rocking and screaming maybe to sleep
(04:01):
and worrying about pumping during the day, but like our
nights are later, we're doing sports picks ups at nine o'clock,
and so the weeks in some ways feel more hectic,
and then the weekends are like ah yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:13):
But with that, we would like to note that there's
a lot of literature out there that talks about the
idea that they start with is that the work week
is stressful and the work the weekend is relaxing. And
I feel like all of that needs to have an
asterisk by it being like if you don't have small kids,
or given that some of this seems to be written
(04:35):
for men who probably do have small kids. The assumption
is that somebody else is fully responsible for them, so
that you can relax on the weekend, even if you
are helping, to put in quotes, your spouse is the
one who is making sure that the two year old
is constantly being supervised. You just walk away, Like you
want to brush your teeth after dinner, you just go
(04:56):
do it. You want to go deal with something in
the yard, you just go do it, which which is.
Speaker 1 (05:01):
Not really fair.
Speaker 3 (05:03):
And so yeah, absolutely, I'm not going to like name
the specific planner, but there was some planner that talked
about like weekend rejuvenation rituals, and I had it when
my kids were little, and I used to be like, uh, yeah, yeah,
this was not designed for me.
Speaker 2 (05:18):
So yeah, well, and so if you believe that your
spouse is the one who's going to keep your toddler
from sticking a fork in the eye, then yeah, of
course you can relax.
Speaker 1 (05:24):
You can.
Speaker 2 (05:25):
You know, it feels like I think you and I
have felt when we had our nannies.
Speaker 1 (05:29):
There.
Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah, so keep in mind that many men seem to
have that all the time, and we can have a
whole separate discussion about that. But anyway, we will just
say that as the beginning of our weekend discussion.
Speaker 3 (05:44):
Moving on and save that for another fun soapbox episode.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
So, yes, the soapbox we get on occasionally.
Speaker 2 (05:52):
Anyway we want to talk about I think it was
a five part formula for a great weekend in this episode.
The first one, of course, you will not be surprised
to hear that both Sarah and I believe in planning
your weekends.
Speaker 1 (06:05):
And I think sometimes people think.
Speaker 2 (06:08):
Planning gets a bad reputation because they think you are
planning things that you don't want to do. But here's
the thing, you are going to do the things that
you have to do. My guess is that if you
are a responsible parent, you're going to make sure your
eight year old gets to a soccer tournament. You are
going to make sure that the laundry gets done. You
are going to make sure that you know if somebody
was supposed to practice the piano twice, they do it.
(06:29):
Planning the weekends is not about making sure those things happen.
It's about making sure you still have time for things
that you want to do, and that there are things
in the weekend that you are genuinely looking forward to
that you have thought through your downtime to make it
more enjoyable for you. So my strategy for that is
(06:49):
to double plan my weekends. And this is a function
of when I do my weekly planning, I tend to
do it on Thursday or Friday looking forward to the
next Monday to Sunday week And so as I am
planning on Thursday or Friday, I am lightly planning the
weekend that is eight to nine days in the future.
But because I am then planning on Thursday and Friday,
(07:10):
I can also look at the weekend that is immediately
coming up and tighten the plan based on has the
weather changed, has something else come up? Is there open
space we'd like to do something in. Does it look
like this kid isn't doing anything this weekend, Maybe I
should see if they could meet up with a friend.
But it allows you to plan a little bit more
(07:32):
tightly having planned lightly for the weekend.
Speaker 1 (07:34):
Eight to nine days in the future.
Speaker 3 (07:37):
So this is where I am going to confess this
is an episode that I need as much as one
that I am participating in now, because I haven't done
a great job with this in the past, because there
was a time I was very very on it. I think,
especially when my kids were little, and I had the
necessity of like very intentionally protecting part of my time
in order to fit things in. But I will say
(07:57):
in recent years, I have gotten more lax with this,
and I'm in a little bit of a transitional phase.
In that last year, so many of our weekends were
anchored by sports events for Cameron because he was just
on a soccer team that played constantly, and now we
don't have that, so because he's taking a year off
or maybe forever off, but definitely this year off from
(08:19):
doing that. And so I just feel like I'm faced
with a lot of new weekend planning challenges. And the
school year is still fairly young as we're recording this,
and I don't feel like I have my planning groove
back on to the point where I was actually talking
about it with the kids in the car that like,
hey remember our weekends when we used to like do
more fun stuff. What happened to that? So this is
(08:39):
a work in progress. But I will say my planning
ritual is generally to do my planning on Sunday. That
is my like I sit there, I do what I
call the week on the board, you know, I fill
in the whole board for next week, figure out where
the activities are, and I do include the following weekend.
So I am starting to think through like do we
have a birthday party? Do we have something fun? But
I haven't done a lot of what you were just
talking about, and I absolutely miss it. Whether that is
(09:01):
my own stuff, and sometimes that's already in there, which
is great, and I put it on the board and
I get to think about it and it's fun or
stuff that involves me and the kids, but it's still
fun for maybe everyone, like visiting some local farm or
something like that that, like I know, will be have
some elements of pleasantness, even if, of course every moment
isn't going to be bliss. So yeah, my method is
(09:22):
to do it on Sunday, and that gives me enough.
You know, I have about six days in advance to
plan up to the next weekend. Although I love your
double planning method, I just don't tend to do a
lot of my home type of planning during the week
these days, just because of the way my work calendar flows.
And so I think I could do what you're doing,
I just need to do more of it. When I
do that Sunday planning.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Well, when do you tighten up the weekend r I
mean because I assume that like stuff comes up in
the course of the week that will need to then
happen on the weekend.
Speaker 3 (09:52):
Every once in a while it does. It's more like
stuff will just get slotted into where there's already blank space,
and you know, I'll write it on the board and
talk about it with the kids. But that's much more
like what falls into my lap, like oh, a kid
gets invited to this more impromptu thing, and much less
of like let's all do this thing. And again, I
(10:13):
think that's what we're missing, but I don't know that
that has happened later. I think we could even have
things tentatively done by the Sunday. We can always move them,
but having some ideas in place would be good. I
do tend to plan my like pilates, so like anything
that needs to be reserved in advance that would be
like fun for me or that I enjoy. I'm still
doing that.
Speaker 1 (10:32):
Yeah, well you know this, we're pivoting.
Speaker 2 (10:35):
And they said, this discussion of the things you plan
in which you know, I like to talk about anchor
events for your weekend or one big adventure and one
little adventure.
Speaker 1 (10:45):
But all of this is something to adjust.
Speaker 2 (10:48):
As your kids get older, because they're not going to
want to do all of these things with you, right,
But you could start to revisit this, like, oh wait,
I can choose things for myself, right, And especially if
you have older kids who probably will be around and
taking care of your younger kids isn't a huge ask.
And especially you know, if your youngest kid is maybe
(11:08):
eight or nine, and you have a thirteen year old,
a fifteen year old whatever, they're not having to do
hands on babysitting for that person. You can start putting
in your own stuff even if other people don't want
to do things. But we'll talk about that in a
minute when we come back from our first ad break. Well,
(11:36):
we are back talking all things weekends. We've been talking
about anchor events, and I think when we have little kids,
we think about, Okay, we're going to put in a
trip to the zoo today, we are going to put
in a trip to the aquarium today. Now there becomes
a point where the kids absolutely do not want to
go to the zoo or the aquarium with you. This
sounds like the worst possible thing in the world. Sometimes
(11:56):
they would have a good time if they went. We
have certainly convinced some children to do things like this,
but you have to sort of keep your expectations in
check for that. But generally you want to ask yourself
going into the weekend, what do I want to remember
from this weekend? Is there something I'm going to do
this weekend that if people were saying, hey, Sarah, how
(12:17):
is your weekend, you would say on Monday morning, you know, oh, yeah,
this is what we did this weekend, or this is
what I did this weekend. So what is that thing
going to be? And you can plan in a small
number of those things over the course of the weekend
that you would be excited about. So, what are some
recent anchor events or adventures.
Speaker 1 (12:37):
That you have had, Sarah?
Speaker 3 (12:39):
Recent anchor events? Well, last weekend, we actually had a
fun work event and it was on a Friday night,
which is not my typical evening of going out, but
they threw this sizeable party and I was determined to
do it and I did. I actually went straight from work.
I brought an outfit with me so I could change
out of my scrubs, and that is that did turn
out to be like a really memorable part of the weekend.
(13:01):
I guess amusing last weekend as an example. My other
bink anchor was impromptu and I did not plan it.
But on Sunday morning, I realized that it was Taylor
Swift's release movie, and why would I not go to that?
So I just said to the kids, like, who would
like to come with me? And I got one taker
and I took her with me and we had a
great time. So that was an example of one where
(13:24):
I didn't do a ton of planning ahead. I mean,
obviously I had that invitation for a while sitting there,
but I was able to carve out some fun things.
So I guess that's my best example of a recent weekend.
Speaker 2 (13:36):
Yeah, maybe that the work event was your like big
Adventure in the Taylor Swift movie is like your Little
Adventure or something like that, if we're going.
Speaker 1 (13:42):
To look at that rubric.
Speaker 3 (13:44):
Yeah, I would say that the work event was at
a totally new venue and it was not something we
do all the time, So I think I get Big
Adventure for that one. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (13:52):
Well, I was thinking back to some previous weekends I did.
Oh a couple WEEKDS ago, I went to a Phillies
game on Friday. It was actually some friends had rented
out a suite for a birthday party, so that was
a lot of fun. And then biked Valley Forage with
some of my kids on one of the days. Another
recent weekend, I went to Longwood Gardens, you know, on
a solo trip. Actually again because you could do your
(14:14):
own solo adventures. You don't have to get people to
come with you, if you don't have to not do
things even if nobody else wants to do anything. And
went out to dinner with a friend. Another weekend, I
went apple picking with Ruth. That required some bribery to
get her to do with me, but we had a
good time. And then I went to Chanticlare, which is
another botanical garden. This past weekend I sang in a concert,
(14:36):
so that was kind of a big adventure. We did
family brunch with all seven of us because Jasper was
home visiting for the weekend. So lots of little things
that are fun to do. But you know, those are
examples of things you would say you remembered from the weekend,
right Like I could look back and say, oh, yeah,
that's what I did that weekend, And if you were
going to have this conversation on Monday totally.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
And I like your thought about the time slots, and
I think there was a time. So the timeslots that
you've had done on the weekend or like Friday night,
Saturday day, Saturday after an internight, Sunday day, Sunday night,
you don't have to have something huge planned for all
of those. In fact, I would argue that for most
people that would be too much to have like five
big slotted things. But maybe if you have two of them,
(15:15):
like one's a big adventure, one's a little adventure, and
a lot of the rest is purposeful down time and
maybe a little bit of depending on when you do
your kind of household rejuvenation stuff, one block of like
okay at grocery shop, I get ready for the week,
confine it to a block so it's not taking over
your entire weekend. But there can be a balance there,
And I think taking the intimidation out of I have
(15:36):
to plan every minute or have every single one of
them have something big and memorable in them will take
the pressure off of some people who might just find
this to seem like a lot.
Speaker 1 (15:44):
Yeah, yeah, but it could.
Speaker 2 (15:46):
Be little things and I think I had originally started
thinking of this because you know, when you have little kids,
you have the nap, So when you have to do
something before the nap, right, get out and do your
adventure for the day, then come on minutes. Then you
always want to have a little something for after the
nap because otherwise, when the beltdown happens, it's only four
o'clock and you've got hours till bedtime. So if you
can push that forward a little bit and have something
(16:07):
that's distracting everyone, that that can be great.
Speaker 3 (16:09):
But yeah, that's the worst slot. I agree with you
with the post map pre dinner. Oh, especially if you
have a partner that's like working that day and is
maybe not going to come home for dinner or is
going to be late, Like oh my gosh, you need something.
Speaker 2 (16:21):
Yeah yeah, but you know, Friday night, even having an
intention for Friday night, if if that's like a fun
dinner with your family, you're going to make or a
special dessert, something to welcome the weekend in.
Speaker 3 (16:31):
And then I would also be Nightriday.
Speaker 2 (16:32):
Yeah, careful about actually thinking of if there is something
you would like to do on Sunday evening.
Speaker 1 (16:39):
And now I know that Sunday evening is like a
work night, right.
Speaker 2 (16:41):
You know, it's a school night, as we say, so
it won't be late, and it probably won't be elaborate.
But having something you are looking forward to on Sunday
evening can actually help with those Sunday scaries that sometimes
people get because instead of spending all of Sunday afternoon
thinking about Monday morning, you're spending Sunday afternoon.
Speaker 1 (16:57):
Thinking about whatever fun thing you are doing on Sunday evening.
Speaker 2 (17:00):
So that can be a way to make your weekends
a little bit more enjoyable too.
Speaker 1 (17:05):
Another idea we.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Talked about adventures, and these can be your own adventures too,
But make sure you plan in some me time. So
what do you want to do for you this weekend,
and specifically, are there are times you're going to exercise,
like what sort of exercise do you think you are
going to do? Is there a hobby you want to
make space for? And also do you have things that
(17:27):
you are consciously choosing to do during any downtime? And
I think it helps to go into your weekend with
a little bit of intention about this, because otherwise it's
very easy to just read headlines half heartedly. Check email,
scroll around on social media, put her around the house
half heartedly picking things up, but not really because you know,
you kind of go to another room and then there's
something that needs to be put away, and then you
(17:48):
go to another room and there's something that you never
really relax. So you want something compelling to do during
your downtime, you know, good idea. Maybe too, if you
go to the library, do this sort of late in
the week so you have your new books ready for
the weekend.
Speaker 1 (18:00):
You're a bookstore if you're doing that.
Speaker 2 (18:02):
Or maybe it's that if you like to do puzzles,
you're sure you have one going for the weekend, or
whatever it is. You've laid in a good stack of magazines,
how about you, Sarah.
Speaker 3 (18:11):
Yeah, reading is a huge one. I feel like if
I have a fiction book that I'm into, I often
look forward to just having a block of time or
I'm going to be in my bed with that book
and maybe like finish it or read forty percent of
it or something like that. And that usually happens while
my kids are playing video games, let's be real, that's what,
or doing homework depending on what people have do the
(18:31):
next day, So that tends to be one of my
sort of big defaults. Another thing which I'm experimenting with
that is new is I just got a print subscription
to the New York Times, so that kind of like
it's there. And then on Sunday mornings, if you want
to have a relaxed morning, you bring the print thing
to the table, you have your coffee, and I mean
for me, I mostly like read book reviews, but that's fun.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
Yeah, well then you know what books you're gonna read.
Speaker 2 (18:54):
And again, this is something that would just not work
if you have an eighteen month old, right, like, yeah,
you know, you're trying to sit there and read your
coffee and they're screaming.
Speaker 1 (19:01):
You have to get up and get something for them.
Speaker 2 (19:03):
And then you know, it's just aggravating to the nth
degree to like want to relax and not be able to.
And so again we have to have different expectations, like
when you have little kids, your weekends are gonna be
planned around what you're gonna.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
Do that's fun for them.
Speaker 2 (19:20):
And then if you want downtime, which your course, you're
gonna want downtime, you need to actively plan it in
like you trade off with your partner.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
Okay, you get Sunday morning to do your thing.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
I get Saturday morning to do my thing, or we
each take three hours on Saturday afternoon and do our
own thing and then we you know, even I think
it would be a good idea to map out who
is on with the little kids when you're all in
the house, right so that mom, because let's be real,
it's going to be mom who would be the default
in most cases, can in fact relax at the house
because she knows that somebody is actively on with the
(19:51):
kid and that's got to be mapped out. But you
don't if they are not little kids anymore.
Speaker 3 (19:59):
And I would put on huge encouragement to if you
do map something like this out, try to leave. And
I know you heard me talk about lying in my
bed and reading books, and that's what you really want
to do. You're tired, and you're like, but you can't.
It's very unlike you're gonna hear screams, You're gonna hear fights,
Like it's gonna be better. See what you can think
of that would be relaxing and rejuvenating if that's what
you're looking for that is not in your home. One
(20:21):
thing to think about would be an exercise class that
does not feel like hard work or torture like a
yin yoga class, for example, it's like, you know what,
you're gonna get to be quiet and lay on pillows
and you'll be left alone, or going to Starbucks for
an hour and getting your favorite drink and reading a
book or something like that, because if you have had
this discussion of a swap, you want to make the
(20:43):
most of those hours and it's just going to probably
be difficult if you're staying in your own home. If
they're home now, if they.
Speaker 2 (20:49):
Left, great, Yeah, then you get to do what you
want at home, which is even better, Sarah. You like
to do some baking projects sometimes, right, Like this is
a thing that happens on weekends.
Speaker 3 (20:59):
Yeah, this is a fit really common thing on and
this you know when your kids are like not eighteen months,
but maybe like four or five and older, you know,
in that age group where you know, this could potentially
be something that you do as a something to do
after nap time kind of a thing that also is
somewhat productive because hey, you'll have those pumpkin muffins for
the morning or whatever you decide to put together. But
(21:21):
I like it even more when I can do it
by myself.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
Yeah, yeah, it's relaxing. Cooking by yourself can be relaxing.
Cooking with people underfoot not so much.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
With this.
Speaker 2 (21:32):
One idea is that you could choose things that are
that could be chores, like cooking or baking, but you
can do them for fun. However, most of us do
have some sort of chores we have to do on
the weekend, So with that, you might want to set
a small window for doing those things so they are
not always possibilities. Right, So we're a big fan of
(21:52):
like outsourcing housekeeping, getting groceries delivered or anything like that.
But if you are doing those things, maybe you say, okay,
we clean house from ten thirty to noon on Saturday morning.
Everyone participates outside of that, we are not cleaning the house,
and you will probably get the things that most had
to happen done during that time. And then you know,
(22:13):
if you're finding yourself looking at a dirty floor on
Friday night, you're not spending all of Friday night cleaning
out because you know there's a time for that Saturday
morning and most of the things will get done.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Then, Yeah, compartmentalizing sounds awesome. I definitely think if you're
looking for kid participation in any chores and your kids
are older again, then that eighteen month window, having a
deal that they have to pick up XYZ before they
turn on their game of choice can be incredibly effective.
Speaker 2 (22:37):
Yeah, and with that, we often have these projects we
want to get done on the weekend. We're like, oh, well,
this is the time I'm going to clean out the garage,
this is the time that I'm going to organize everyone's
winter clothes or whatever it is. And that's fine because again,
you probably are going to do it on the weekend
and not during the week. However, you want to make
sure that you only bite off the amount you can
(22:57):
chew on a weekend and the amount that's not going
to make you feel stressed and like you are a
failure when you don't finish it. So I would suggest
making yourself a very short weekend to do list, like
the things that absolutely have to happen, and you can
do one thing beyond maybe two if it's a low
key weekend, but one or two things beyond basic life maintenance.
(23:19):
So yeah, you know you're gonna do the laundry and
grocery shopping. But if there is one or two other
small things you are going to do. Set that as
a goal for yourself, and then only do that, and
then you'll accomplish it and you'll feel good. So a
previous weekend, I decided I was going to clean off
the shelves in the upstairs movie room. Right, they'd gotten
really cluttered over the course of the past year with
nobody putting things away.
Speaker 1 (23:39):
So I went and did that. They look better. That
was my thing for the weekend. Nothing else.
Speaker 3 (23:44):
I did that with my book decluttering, like you know,
I'm trying to organize and declutter key areas, and putting
an entire room on my list for the Sunday would
have made me do absolutely nothing. But I'm like, oh,
I'm going to do is go to my bookshelf and
figure out what books I'm ready to donate.
Speaker 1 (23:57):
And I did it there and they're diaty.
Speaker 3 (24:00):
Go, they're in the garage, they're out of the house,
so we're good.
Speaker 1 (24:02):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (24:02):
And if you have a big project, you're like, we
have to clean out the garage. Spread it over like
six weekends, right and look at it. Shine a specifical task. Yes,
this idea shelf is this weekend, that shelf is next weekend.
This pile on the floor is the next weekend, and
you will get through it and you will not feel overwhelmed.
We're gonna take one more quick ad break and then
we will be back with more on making good weekends. Well,
(24:34):
we are back talking all things weekends, how to create enjoyable,
relaxing weekends, with the caveat, of course, that our youngest
children are now at the age where they don't have
to be constantly supervised. So if you have young kids,
we understand that weekends are not automatically relaxing, and there
are certain strategies you can do consciously trading off with
(24:55):
your partner or hiring childcare for a few hours. We'll
discuss that more in a little bit. But you can
also have the mindset that I should enjoy my weekends
and this goes a long way toward making weekends more enjoyable.
Pursuing pleasure and consciously pursuing pleasure is really a two
step process. I mean one, you want to solve any
(25:15):
pain points. Is there anything you can do that you
find on weekends very painful that you can solve? So?
Are you driving all day to kids sporting events? According
to your plan? That you're looking at, Well, do you
need to do that? Can you spread that around with
other people? Can you skip one of them?
Speaker 1 (25:32):
I don't know.
Speaker 2 (25:33):
Is there something that could happen or is there something
fun you can do there? Like is there a cool
bookstore that's nearby the soccer place that you could spend
your time there or go for a run while you're
there instead of just feeling like you've lost your entire
weekend to this.
Speaker 3 (25:44):
Yeah, I definitely think this is where trade offs come
in as well. If you know that there are a
couple of kid birthday parties and two parents, then you
are not maybe two of them is going to make
the weekend feel like too much, but one of them
would be okay. Then embrace the socialista, so the one
you choose to go to, and then figure out how
you can swap off for the other one.
Speaker 1 (26:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (26:06):
I mean, maybe there's one that, like you would be
particularly more excited about doing than you know your spouse
doesn't hate chuck E cheese.
Speaker 1 (26:13):
I don't know, whatever you can work out between the
two of you.
Speaker 2 (26:16):
And you can also you solve the pain points and
then also come up with little ways you can up
the pleasure factor.
Speaker 1 (26:23):
Like, what are you eating on the weekend? Have you
thought through your meals?
Speaker 2 (26:26):
Like are there good things to eat in your house
so you're excited about like your Saturday morning breakfast?
Speaker 1 (26:31):
Right, you're not just you know, eating cold cereal again?
Speaker 2 (26:34):
Or something we talked about having good things to read,
Like if it's pretty outside, are you going to get
outside at some point? Are you listening to fun music
while you're in the car, Like do you have something
good to listen to? You know what you want to
listen to? Like, think about ways you can push a
little bit more pleasure into the crevices of your weekend.
Speaker 3 (26:54):
Yeah, even a favorite show that you're going to watch,
or I don't know, if you have to take a
kid to Target to get thing? Can you spend ten
minutes in this section of your choice, like maybe looking
at all the stationary and planners for next year? You
know things like.
Speaker 1 (27:08):
That could be done. Sounds fun? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (27:11):
No, I mean when you do all these things, you
know you plan ahead when you consider the anchor advents
or adventures you want to be talking about that you
remember on Monday morning when you going through my list here,
Oh my goodness. When you plan in me time, you
think through your downtime, you compress your chores and errands,
and then you consciously pursue pleasure. You can have really
(27:33):
awesome weekends, and we want that for everyone listening to this.
So today's question is related to this, though, which is
that somebody wrote in that I work full time, and
not coincidentally, we also have full time childcare. Is it
okay to hire a babysitter for a few hours on
the weekend. I know it might be okay for the
occasional date night, but what about like regularly during the day.
Speaker 1 (27:57):
I feel guilty about this, Sarah, what do you think?
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Oh my gosh, Well, I love your answer, but I
will just tell you that I used to do this
I don't need to do it anymore again, because I'm
at a different stage. But there was a time in
my life when I fairly regularly would get someone from
like I don't know, ten to two or something like
that on a Saturday, especially if Josh was on call,
so I knew there was like really no switching off
to be had, And oh my gosh, the difference that
those few hours made in my happiness was immense. The
(28:23):
difference that those hours made in my children's life was
zero or maybe even positive because they got a break
from me, they had fun with their babysitter, they got
to do something else, and the idea looking back on
having like really any in trepidation about that. It seems
so crazy because also, like doing the math, Laura's teaches
us how many hours we have, and four hours out
(28:44):
of your whole weekend is not even that significant, but
it's gonna feel significant if it's a difference between you
having no time for yourself and you having time too.
I used to go to it's not even open anymore,
but I used to go to a fly bar at
bar class. I felt all fancy. That was an example
of a fitness class that wasn't torture. So it was like,
I'm getting out of the house, I'm doing something for myself,
and it's also not even that hard, so it's just fun.
Speaker 1 (29:05):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (29:06):
Yeah, I mean, obviously, if you're not seeing your kid at.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
All during the week, I don't know.
Speaker 2 (29:11):
If you're one of those people who is in fact
gone constantly and all that, then maybe you probably should
focus your weekends on spend family time. But I'm guessing
very few people listening to this fall into that category,
and hiring a few hours sitter for a few hours
on a weekend can be life changing. I mean, obviously,
trading off with your spouse is a very straightforward thing
to do and cost nothing, and so most people can
(29:34):
avail themselves of that immediately in order to.
Speaker 1 (29:37):
Get more meat time.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Now, if that doesn't work for whatever reason, or if
you too want to spend some time together which is
also allowed, which is also allowed, then this is where
bringing in somebody else can be helpful. And I would
point out that many people who live near grandparents, and
if the grandparents want to be helpful like and drop
the kids off at Grandma's for a few hours and
get that time together, if you don't have that available, again,
(30:01):
the paid help is just approximating either your spouse, your
extended family, or anything like that. If those things are
not available to you, So yeah, go for it. I mean,
you might want to think about when would be most strategic.
I mean, obviously, sometimes sitters like to have enough hours
to make it worth their while, So maybe you might
(30:22):
do something like three o'clock to nine o'clock on Saturday,
right so you would miss the post nap meltdown, they'd
get fresh blood in there for that.
Speaker 1 (30:33):
You could go.
Speaker 2 (30:33):
Work out, or you guys each could go see a
friend and then you meet up for dinner or a
movie afterwards and have your Saturday night date. And that
would be a great way to feel like you really
got a weekend and that Saturday was fun as opposed
to being all the work of caring for children, because again,
I mean it's fun. Like, we love babies, we have
a ton of them, but they are a lot of work,
and especially if you are the person who's primarily caring
(30:55):
for them, they are a lot of work and you
wind up with very little time to relax, and people
need time to relax.
Speaker 1 (31:02):
That's one of the things that make people feel most stressed.
Speaker 3 (31:04):
Totally agree, So we give you a full permission slip signed.
Speaker 2 (31:07):
Yeah, exactly, exactly, all right, So love of the week
mine is I'm going to say kids who are old
enough to babysit, because it so makes the logistics easier.
I'm pondering, I mean, we just need a lot more
help if we didn't have that now. But the fact
that you can like leave most of my kids by
themselves for a bit, and two of them who are
(31:28):
home right now can be left in charge of others.
It makes everything so much easier to figure out, which
I appreciate it totally.
Speaker 3 (31:39):
Well, mine is something simple, But I don't want to
take this for granted. I love reservations like the fact
that you can make sure to even book online, not
even have to talk to anyone, and then know that
you're going to have like a table big enough for
your family at a restaurant at a time you guys
want to eat. That is so nice because the alternative
is so frustrating, and so yeah, I embrace it, good
(32:00):
old reservation and I guess we'll add to that apps
like resi or open Table.
Speaker 2 (32:04):
Now.
Speaker 3 (32:04):
I know they're not always the best thing for restaurants
because sometimes they have to give a portion of whatever,
But if you haven't made a reservation and it's Saturday
night and you have five people or more in your
family so it's like harder to find a table, you
can look to see who has a table available and
actually book it on your phone while you're driving around,
saving yourself the heartache. So I have both of those
apps on my phone. I use them, and I love it.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
Yeah, technology is great for having a sufficient information to
make decisions.
Speaker 1 (32:31):
Which is very efficient. Love it all right? Well, this
has been best of both worlds.
Speaker 2 (32:34):
We've been talking about how to fall in love with
your weekends again. We will be back next week with
more on making work and life fit together.
Speaker 3 (32:44):
Thanks for listening. You can find me Sarah at the
shoebox dot com or at the Underscore Shoebox on Instagram.
Speaker 1 (32:51):
And you can find me Laura at Laura vandercam dot com.
Speaker 3 (32:56):
This has been the best of both worlds podcasts.
Speaker 1 (32:59):
Please join us next time for more.
Speaker 3 (33:01):
I'm making work and life work together.
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