A major victory has been won in this house.  Ten months ago (or even six months ago), I would have laughed derisively if someone had told me this could happen, and my faith would have been rather less than picture-the-victory-ish.

But, oh, Saturday…

We have conquered you.

What used to be a day of exhaustion and mayhem every week has begun to behave itself with beautiful rhythm, like wild poetry. We have kids cleaning their floors, making beds, vacuuming rooms, and this morning there was not even a single argument.

My favorite part of this new routine is breakfast, because I no longer make it.

Iree has taken it over for me and makes oatmeal every week. She loves the domestic duties of chopping apples, walnuts, and pears, setting out bowls, and putting the kettle on to boil. She does it all by herself while I am leisurely drinking coffee in my bathrobe and checking email with minimal disturbance.

The only interruptions this morning were a knock on my door, followed by a little mousy voice asking, “Can I have eggnog in my oatmeal…?” (um…no) and a few minutes later, a request to pray so they could start eating (um, yes!). It was idyllic.

I felt like I was living the dream…not the dream I imagined, though.

My dreams are better, He says. They’re out of your box.

On my own, my box would have maybe contained a romantic ballad interspersed with some free verse. Instead, He has me in what feels like an epic allegory, seasoned with plenty of irony and the occasional sarcastic limerick.

Saturdays are beautiful now. I still wake up earlier than I want, we still have chores to do, but the rhythm of the day has mellowed.

“But it isn’t easy,” said Pooh to himself…“Because Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they find you.”

– A.A. Milne, The House at Pooh Corner

Today, we finished leftover assignments from the week – a little geometry, a little writing, a chapter about Einstein, some Viking history – and then we had a nature scavenger hunt. I sent the kids out with a list of things to find and they came back an hour or so later with a bucket full of surprises, including but not limited to:

Something fuzzy (moss), a rosehip, two kinds of seeds (one was dug out of the compost – ick!), three types of leaves (birch, nettle, chickweed), something straight (a stick), something rough (lichen), and a chewed leaf.

There was some confusion over that last item on the list.

Afton: Eww…I guess I’ll find a dandelion leaf to chew…

Me: No, not a leaf that you’ve chewed, a leaf that a bug has chewed!

Afton, with an odd mixture of relief and disappointment.: Oh. 

And then we read stories. And then we watched a movie – a rare occurrence – and ate popcorn with fruit for dinner…which is not a rare occurrence, but a weekly one, and it was in this that He spoke to me:

You need both routine and surprise, meter and free verse. They work well together – one protects your joy, and the other cultivates more of it.

Hmm. But didn’t we have routine and structure before, though? And we had more surprises than we wanted…so why did it take so long for…?

It takes time for the flavors to come together, He says. It has to mellow.

You have to wait for the song to come. 

*This is day twenty of the Wait and Listen series. The other posts are here.