Scenes from the Weekend: 1/5/26

Whoop. Just finished typing that title and almost wrote 2025. Still over here trying to get used to writing 2026. It takes me ’til February to fully accept that we’re in a new year.

Happy Monday!

And, to many of you, happy “send your kids back to school” day. And, if you’re a teacher reading this, I’m sorry. Hope you got some well-deserved relaxation and rest. (Though if you’re anything like I was when I was teaching, your body probably waited until break to finally say, HEY. YOU’VE BEEN AROUND GERMS.)

Let’s do a quick weekend recap before I gotta get the kids ready. 

The kids started Friday morning playing with the train tracks. (It’s wild how a toy can sit dormant for so long and then suddenly, out of nowhere, it’s the most interesting thing we own).

This detail has no real relevance to our weekend except that  I needed to document it somewhere. Ishu had Riyu watch him move the trains along the track. And Riyu, as expected, was his brother’s biggest cheerleader and screamed, “You’re the BEST JOBBER!!!!!……In the EVER way!” 

I just love how he takes bits and bobs of language and stitches them together into something brand new. It’s one of my favorite parts of this age.

Later in the day, we went to the museum. 

We are still very much loving the playspace. Mostly ’cause Yola brings out all these fun fine motor and sorting activities that are very developmentally appropriate for Riyu right now!

Riyu has also warmed up to her significantly and now demands that we see her from time to time. The museum, in general, is not my fav place to be when schools are out ’cause it’s PACKED. But that little playroom for 0-5 year olds is always really nice. Most days, we just pop in for that and then head home.

In the evening, the kids packed bags of crafts and toys and went downstairs to hang with Auntie Anna for a bit. 

Then she came over for dinner and I made this Thai Tofu Curry Noodle Soup. It was less of a soup and more of a noodle dish ’cause I let it simmer too long. But it was still delicious and made lots of leftovers. 

After bedtime, a few of us gathered at Melissa’s place to do some fun reflective journaling.

Franzi introduced us to the Rauhnächte tradition. It’s a German practice observed during the twelve nights between Christmas and January 6. It’s a time for reflection, journaling, and paying close attention to dreams. (Each night is thought to correspond to one month of the coming year).

We gathered. We ate. We shared what we were grateful for and what we wanted to release. We drank cacao, wrote affirmations, and pulled goddess cards.

One of the rituals involves writing 13 affirmations or wishes. Over the twelve nights, you randomly burn one each night, sending it off to the universe. Leaving one final wish that you are responsible for working on yourself.

We ended up staying there ’til late and then I came home to a restless toddler who woke several times overnight, which meant very little sleep for me. But, somehow, I still remembered two of my dreams. 

Franzi suggested I type my dreams – with all the description and feelings I could remember – into ChatGPT. And WOW.

It was one of those experiences I immediately copied, saved, and knew I’d want to come back to. I definitely want to do a separate blog post on those two dreams and how they were interpreted, because it was unexpectedly insightful. (Don’t worry. Still lovin’ my therapy time, but I had no idea ChatGPT could help me with not only interpreting my dream, but thinking about next steps, strategies to use when overwhelmed, scripts I can use when I need to regulate, ALL OF IT. SO useful).

Early Saturday afternoon, we all met up at LifeTime and took a late Barre class. The rest of the evening was quiet and homey reading books, blogging, doing dinosaur art, the usual.

On Sunday, we did our Pickleball thing and then I took another barre class. After that, I braved the Sunday crowds to grocery shop at two different stores. Thankfully without the kids (I’m trying out a couple new recipes this week and I needed my full brain to grocery shop. I can only autopilot grocery shop when the kids are with me). 

Ishu’s been really into this Brain Quest book that Babaji and Dadi gave him on one of their trips here. He took it with him to the gym yesterday. I found myself awkwardly trying to explain that I’m not your stereotypical Indian mom drilling academics into her kid. He’s just genuinely obsessed. He got insanely excited about compound words. But, y’know, there are worse things for him to be obsessed with, I guess. 

So, yes, there was a lot of Brain Quest this weekend too. Along with Pixar trivia. And Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. And Kung Fu Panda. (At one point last week, I was randomly singing, “Everybody was Kung Fu Fighting” and Ishu rolled his eyes and said, “That’s not even a song,” and I was like, WATCH THIS, SUCKER. And now it’s his new favorite song). 

OKAY, I gotta go. This is long. 

BYE.