This weekend, we took the kids on a bike ride, did groceries and laundry, and cleaned the house. We cooked, gardened, and swept out the garage. We ate cereal and tucked the kids in at night with stories and songs. Sounds banal, right?

We haven’t had a weekend like this in AGES. I’m sure I’ll regret not working straight through, but these few days of normal have been rejuvenating – for all of us, even the dog.

School’s out, camp hasn’t started, and the weather has not been cooperating. Our family pictures session got postponed, and it’s not looking good for fireworks this week. But none of that really matters. To the kids, it’s summer. As long as they’ve got wheels, chalk, bubbles and a yard, they’re happy.

As adults, we should totally take a page from that book. And in this house of bookworms, we often mean that literally. So the kids played in the park as Dave surveilled them from the roof with his book. And after Remy and I laboriously worked our way through his hard earned pages of reading, I got some delicious summer novel moments myself, with various kids jumping onto my lap for a social interruption. That’s our chalk and bubbles, and man! Reading really is that great.

So we’re capping off a lowkey weekend by marveling at our tidier house, spending a little extra time on little bedtimes, and enjoying every bite of our Indian takeout. Because these boring moments are as vital to our sanity as those training wheels are to Griff.