Home Front

By Julie Vanspell

When my husband and I were married, friends prepared a gift basket. Inside, we found linens, Starbucks coffee beans, homemade biscotti, a newspaper, and two large coffee mugs. Accompanying the gift was a note labelling the assortment a Saturday Morning Relaxation Kit.

The note explained that for our friends, sleeping late and then reading the Saturday paper, together, over a cup of coffee was one of their favourite rituals as a married couple. They hoped that we would find similar joy in such simplicity, and we did.

When God created the world, the first five days were spent building a planet and everything necessary to sustain life within it. Early in our marriage, we spent five days of the week rushing around, working at jobs to earn money and establish a home.

On the sixth day, God focused on people, creating "man in His image" (Gen. 1:27) On our "sixth days" we, too, focused on people as we worked to build a marriage. Saturday mornings gave us the opportunity to slow down and spend time together before engaging in weekend chores.

Eleven years later, Saturdays are slightly different. First of all, we feel lucky if we're still asleep at 7 a.m. Second, as soon as we crawl out of bed, there are people expecting to eat breakfast and attend hockey practice. Third, I can't remember the last time we had biscotti! We do, however, continue to read the paper (sometimes finishing it on a Sunday afternoon), and we are still using the cups that have always been reserved for Saturdays.

Whenever I take these mugs from the cupboard, I feel thankful. We once enjoyed unscheduled Saturday mornings, and we now enjoy a life that centres on our children. Sometimes we're still able to sip our coffee; other times we gulp it down; always we live as a family, and our special mugs remind us of when it all began.

I love our present life, yet sometimes I long for an opportunity to have one day, or one hour, with no demands placed upon me. Maybe this is why saying goodbye to Daylight Saving Time appeals to me.

I don't particularly like the fact that days are growing shorter, but I love sleeping an extra hour on a Sunday morning. It has always felt guiltily decadent to enjoy a more relaxed "Saturday" feeling and still make it to 8:30 a.m. Mass. Even though my children don't sleep in on ordinary days, every autumn when the clocks fall back, I manage to fool myself into believing that this "extra hour" will magically return me to a world where sleeping in is permitted.

Two years ago I nestled into my flannel sheets, anticipating a lengthy slumber. At 5:24 a.m. my youngest began calling, and I went into denial. "Just an hour more," I pleaded under my breath, hoping she'd doze off again. By 5:45 I knew that the gig was up. When it feels like 6:45 to a 17-month-old, it feels like 6:45.

Deciding that one wakened child was better than three, I grudgingly stumbled out of bed and turned on the coffee. The baby smiled, babbled, and laughed while she ate breakfast. I enjoyed a quiet cup of coffee and a shower, all before 7 a.m. Eventually my older children were awake, fed, washed, and dressed. We weren't rushing out the door for Mass, and the whole day took on a positive tone that would have been missed had we merely slept that extra hour away.

"God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it He rested from all the work He had done in creation" (Gen. 2:3). The Bible tells us that, on the Sabbath, God "rested," not "slept." He slowed down and marvelled at the world He had created, and we are called to do the same.

My Sunday morning wasn't entirely different from those cherished Saturdays of the past. Sure it lacked a newspaper, favourite mugs, and biscotti, yet it provided an opportunity to escape routine and spend a relaxing hour with the wide-awake little people I love. This "seventh day" was filled with rest, not in the form of extra sleep, but in appreciating the blessings that make my world so "very good" (Gen. 1:31).

Children rouse my body and likewise awaken my soul. A child who simply wanted to begin her day, and do so with me, reminded me that rolling back the clocks actually provides an extra hour to live, not sleep.

I am grateful for "bonus hours" and the youngsters who wake me every day. These are the moments I'll treasure, when my children are grown and want to sleep in themselves.

Memories will become my comfort, my "relaxation kit," when, once again, I long for an hour more.