Sunday Has Been Rebranded

Sunday has changed.

I don’t remember agreeing to this. There wasn’t a meeting, nobody circulated minutes and I’m fairly certain I didn’t sign anything, but somewhere between the summer holidays ending and the first week of school, Sunday has quietly stopped being Sunday and become The Day We Get Everything Ready For Monday.

Which is ambitious, considering I currently can’t find one school shoe.

Not a pair. One.

I have the other one. It’s sitting by the door looking unbearably smug, as though it knows exactly where its mate is and has signed some sort of footwear confidentiality agreement.

I was actually looking for the PE kit when I found it, although I only started looking for the PE kit because I went upstairs for a towel and noticed a school bag, which reminded me about Monday.

I still don’t have the towel.

This is September family life, apparently.

The first proper week of the new routine has happened and already the beautiful September optimism is beginning to crack. Those shiny new school shoes that looked positively ceremonial a few days ago have now encountered Wales. There is mud on things I didn’t know had been outside.

I’m fairly convinced Welsh mud can open doors.

And today, being the first Sunday after that initial week back, I woke up with the dangerous idea that I was going to become Organised Eira.

She appears occasionally.

She’s magnificent.

Organised Eira owns a diary, writes lists and knows what everyone is having for tea on Thursday.

Unfortunately, she usually disappears before lunchtime and leaves Actual Eira to deal with all the commitments she’s made.

This morning she made a list.

Uniform. Washing. School bags. Lunch stuff. Find shoe. Sort kitchen. Work out dinners. Put camping things away properly.

Yes, the camping things.

You may remember earlier this week I announced that the summer adventures were over, the school run had returned and I was going to reclaim the house from the camping equipment. This was apparently less a statement of intent and more a work of fiction.

The camping equipment has moved.

I’ll give myself that.

It was in the hallway.

It is now on the landing.

At this rate it should reach the cupboard sometime around Easter.

And this is what I mean about September. Everybody talks about “getting back into a routine” as though a routine is something you retrieve from a drawer.

“Oh look, there it is! Next to the batteries. Pop that back in.”

Family routines don’t work like that.

They sort of shuffle back into the house one at a time.

Bedtimes return first.

Then school mornings.

Then somebody remembers there are after-school things.

Then you discover that something which fitted perfectly well in July apparently no longer fits because children have an irritating habit of growing when nobody is looking.

And slowly the house changes rhythm.

Research into family routines does suggest that predictable everyday patterns can be useful for children and family wellbeing. But I think there’s an important difference between having a rhythm and trying to run your home like air-traffic control.

Because I made that mistake this morning.

I was going to Get Ahead.

You know that phrase?

Dangerous.

Getting ahead is how I ended up naked in the garden cleaning a window.

I can explain.

Sort of.

I went upstairs for the towel.

Saw school bag.

Remembered PE kit.

Looked for PE kit.

Found one shoe.

Took shoe downstairs.

Remembered washing.

Went to kitchen.

Put washing on.

Made coffee.

Looked through kitchen window.

Thought, God, that window is filthy.

Went outside to clean window.

Naturist household, so there wasn’t really an additional getting-dressed stage involved.

Halfway through polishing the glass I suddenly thought:

TOWEL.

And just stood there holding a squeegee.

There are moments when even I would quite like to watch my brain from the outside.

The neighbours probably already do.

But actually, standing there on a September Sunday morning with the house behind me in various states of preparation, I realised something.

We don’t need to get everything ready for the week today.

We need to have a Sunday.

That sounds ridiculously obvious written down.

The parenting world is full of genuinely useful advice about preparing uniforms, organising meals, checking calendars and creating routines. Parents themselves swap the same survival tricks online because they work: do what you can the night before, put things where you’ll see them, use reminders, simplify mornings.

Fine.

Excellent.

But if I spend the whole of Sunday preparing for Monday, and Monday preparing for Tuesday, at what point am I actually living on the day whose name is currently printed at the top of the calendar?

So I have revised the plan.

One shoe still needs finding because even my philosophy has limits.

The school bags can be sorted later.

The camping gear may remain on its northward migration towards the cupboard.

And we’re getting out of the house.

Nothing enormous. Nothing requiring laminated itineraries, seventeen snacks and an emergency change of clothes for everyone.

Just outside.

Early September in Wales is actually rather lovely for that. We haven’t reached full autumn yet, whatever the pumpkin displays would have us believe. Summer is loosening its grip, the evenings are beginning to draw in, but there is still plenty of green around and enough daylight to steal a few hours outdoors.

And perhaps that’s our Sunday routine.

Not preparing every possible detail of the week ahead.

Just finding a little bit of space before it begins.

Come home afterwards, get the kit off, make something easy for tea, locate whatever Monday requires and accept that something will inevitably be forgotten.

Because something always is.

Families aren’t machines.

Homes aren’t supposed to look permanently reset.

And children do not appear to suffer any emotional distress whatsoever from leaving a sock in the middle of the stairs for four consecutive days.

I, meanwhile, have walked past it approximately nineteen times while thinking, I’ll pick that up when I come back.

It has essentially become part of the architecture.

Actually—

Hang on.

I’ve just realised where the missing shoe might be.

Under the camping gear.

See?

Organised Eira knew exactly what she was doing.

Probably.