Tuesday Fun Nights

 James and I were doing a parenting course with our Bible Study group this term. During Term 3 I found that we were finding being parents tricky. The kids would be pushing each others buttons, or at times pushing ours. I was questioning whether we were doing the right thing as parents, making different consequences, picking battles, jumping in to sort out fights with the kids, etc. I had had a few chats with Carol about it at Mainly Music and just wondering what we could do. It was refreshing to hear that the Cleasby kids didn't always get along, that they found it hard at times, that some days would just be off days and some days Carol and Paul would sit there wondering if their kids would even be friends. Sounded very familiar which made me feel a lot better. Through church they were offering a parenting course over zoom and our Bible Study group decided it would be good to do.

From this course we learnt that a lot of what we were already doing was good and right. We learnt that siblings will fight and that is good for them to learn dynamics for future friendships, etc. We learnt that we need to sometimes take a step back when the kids are fighting and let them try and sort it out. We learnt that family dynamics are important and that it is really important to be available as a parent. It is important for us to be praying for our kids, something that I want to intentionally do more this next year. We also thought about our kids' love languages which was a good activity to do. We feel that Daniel's is acts of service, Eliza's is quality time and Alexander's is physical touch. Will be interesting to see if they stay the same or if they change as they grow up.

We also learnt that it was important to set aside time to invest in our family relationships, even to weekly set aside a time to get together. This brings me to our Tuesday Fun Nights. We decided to set aside Tuesday nights for us to do something special together. It is the one night that we don't have a sport commitment, we don't have a family dinner and it isn't the end of the week when we might be playing with friends. This day might change over the years, but we are being intentional about setting aside a special time for us. We spoke with the kids about it and Daniel came up with the name 'Tuesday Fun Night'. Naming it makes it more special. We then brainstormed what we could do as a family and the kids did a great job coming up with about 10 different ideas that we can choose from (or come up with different ideas as the time goes).

Some of the activities that we have done are:

-Bluey

We have enjoyed watching Bluey together. The kids (and James) absolutely love watching Bluey and they have brought out some new episodes so we had a night where we watched 4-5 episodes together.

-Obstacle Course

The next week the kids were really keen to make an obstacle course that we all needed to complete. We timed each other and tried to improve our original time (which we all did). James was quite hesitant to do it, but he was quite competitive and ended up having a lot of fun. I loved watching the kids encourage each other and cheer each other on as they completed the course.

Daniel was excited about getting a faster time

Look at Daddy's competitive face!

-Junior Master Chef

We did a stacks on Daddy before watching some Junior Master Chef.

-Wii

We played the Wii together. Eliza is amazing at bowling!

Eliza won the first round of bowling by far!

Like with the obstacle course, I loved the way that the kids were encouraging each other and celebrating when they scored a strike or a spare. 

-Decorating the Christmas Tree

This was a Saturday fun day (instead of Tuesday fun night) because of picking up the tree on the weekend. With Christmas being around the corner we decorated the Christmas tree together as a fun time. The kids had a lot of fun decorating the tree, putting up their own decorations. Alexander got to help put up the star this year (with help from Daddy).

-Board Games

We started our board games with Santa Hoopla. James was a very helpful hoopla pole.

-Christmas lights driving

We went Christmas lights watching (this will be a seperate post). Because of Covid and because it was raining we drove around to a few different places and watched the lights from the car.

-Take away and the Sixers

And the most recent Tuesday Fun Night was staying up to watch a Sixers 6pm game, including take away dinner in front of the tv. It was an awesome game to stay up for. We all thought that the Renegades were going to win but the Sixers won with 1 ball left. They did so well. It was very exciting.

While it is tiring coming up with ideas and at times tiring having the kids stay up late, it has been so nice to do something fun together each week and something that we probably wouldn't normally do. I'm looking forward to more Tuesday Fun Night activities next year.