Monday is practice.

Tuesday is homework.

Wednesday is laundry, dishes and realizing someone needs poster board for a project tomorrow.

Thursday you're just trying to make it to Friday.

And then comes the weekend.

That's when we'll do something fun.

Sound familiar?

Somewhere along the way, many of us started treating family fun like something that needs to be scheduled for Saturday. It needs tickets. A destination. A packed bag. Maybe a reservation.

But childhood doesn't only happen on weekends.

In fact, some of the moments your kids remember most may happen on a completely ordinary Tuesday.

🧡 The Little Things Become the Big Things

Think about your own childhood.

You probably remember some vacations and big celebrations.

But I'll bet you remember some really random things, too.

The snack your mom always made.

Driving around looking at Christmas lights.

Playing outside until the streetlights came on.

Stopping for ice cream for absolutely no reason.

The song your family always sang in the car.

Those weren't necessarily planned memory-making experiences.

They were just life.

And that's exactly the point.

We spend so much time trying to create magical childhoods that sometimes we forget childhood is already happening.

Today.

At 4:17 p.m.

In the car.

At the dinner table.

Walking around the block.

🍁 You Don't Need a Whole Day. You Need 20 Minutes.

A family adventure doesn't have to involve packing the car and losing half of Saturday.

Sometimes you just need twenty minutes.

Try:

☕ Getting cocoa after school.

🎃 Driving through a neighborhood looking for Halloween decorations.

🍕 Taking dinner to the park instead of eating at the table.

🍂 Walking around the block and finding the biggest leaf.

🌅 Going somewhere just to watch the sunset.

🔦 Taking flashlights on an evening walk.

🎶 Turning the music WAY up and having a kitchen dance party.

🍎 Trying three different apples and declaring an official family favorite.

📸 Letting the kids take pictures of things they think look like fall.

👻 “Booing” a neighbor with a tiny surprise.

None of those things are complicated.

That's what makes them doable.

💵 Fun Doesn't Have to Cost $100

This one is worth saying again.

You do not have to spend a fortune to give your kids a fun childhood.

Family fun has gotten expensive.

Admission.

Food.

Parking.

Souvenirs.

And if you're taking several kids somewhere, a seemingly inexpensive outing can turn into a small financial event before you've even left the parking lot. 😂

Those experiences can be wonderful.

But they don't have to be the only experiences that count.

A $2 hot chocolate can become a tradition.

A free playground can become “our park.”

A walk around the neighborhood can become the night everyone laughed so hard they had to stop walking.

Kids don't calculate the admission price before deciding whether a memory matters.

🍂 Break Up the School-Homework-Dinner-Bed Loop

Weekdays can start feeling very... beige.

Wake up.

School.

Pickup.

Homework.

Activities.

Dinner.

Bath.

Bed.

Repeat.

And adults feel it too.

Sometimes doing one tiny unexpected thing changes the whole mood of the day.

Instead of:

“Get your backpack. We're going home.”

Try:

“Get your backpack. We're going on a 20-minute adventure.”

You don't even have to tell them where you're going.

Maybe you're stopping at a park.

Maybe you're getting cider.

Maybe you're taking the long way home to find the house with the giant skeleton.

Suddenly Tuesday isn't just Tuesday anymore.

🎃 Fall Makes This Ridiculously Easy

October practically does the work for us.

The air is cooler.

The leaves are changing.

Porches are covered in pumpkins.

Halloween decorations are popping up everywhere.

Sunset comes earlier.

There are pumpkin patches, fall festivals, trunk-or-treats, community events and little seasonal surprises all over Colorado.

You don't need to wait for Saturday.

If there's something happening nearby at 5:00 on a Wednesday, go for an hour.

You don't have to stay until the end.

You don't have to do everything.

You are allowed to show up, have fun and leave.

Family fun doesn't require perfect attendance. 😂

💗 Put the Phone Away for Twenty Minutes

I'm not going to tell you to throw your phone into a lake.

We need those things.

They're our cameras, calendars, maps, work, grocery lists and the place where we Google, “Is this rash normal?” at 10:47 p.m.

But during your tiny adventure?

Try putting it away for a little while.

Take the picture.

Then put it back in your pocket.

Because sometimes we're so busy documenting childhood that we accidentally watch it through a screen.

You don't need 47 pictures of the leaf walk.

You need the leaf walk.

🐝 Let Your Kids Choose Sometimes

Here's an easy one:

Ask your child:

“We have 30 minutes. What should we do?”

Their answer might surprise you.

Adults tend to think bigger.

Kids often don't.

They may want to go to the playground.

Throw rocks in a creek.

Get a cookie.

Ride bikes.

Look at Halloween decorations.

Go to the library.

Sit somewhere and talk.

Letting them choose occasionally also tells them something important:

I like spending time with you. Your ideas matter.

That's bigger than the activity itself.

🧡 Don't Make This Another Thing You Have to Do

This is important.

Please don't finish this article and think:

Great. Another thing I'm supposed to squeeze into the week.

Nope.

You don't need to create magical moments every day.

Some Tuesdays are going to be frozen pizza, homework battles and everybody wearing pajamas by 6:30.

Those nights count too.

This isn't about doing more.

It's about noticing when there's room for a little fun.

Maybe once this week.

Maybe once this month.

Maybe tonight.

🍁 Because Someday...

There will be a last playground trip.

A last time they ask you to push them on the swing.

A last time they'll think driving around looking at giant inflatable ghosts is the greatest entertainment ever invented.

And you probably won't know it's the last time when it happens.

That's the strange thing about raising kids.

The ordinary days don't announce themselves as important.

They just quietly become memories.

So don't save all the fun for Saturday.

Grab the cocoa.

Take the long way home.

Eat dinner at the park.

Go see the ridiculous 12-foot skeleton.

Take the twenty-minute adventure.

Because sometimes the smallest detour from an ordinary day becomes the story they tell years later.

“Remember when we used to...?”

That's the good stuff. 💗

🐝 Need an Adventure?

You don't have to figure out what to do all by yourself.

The Buzzy B Calendar is packed with things happening around our Colorado communities, from free family activities and seasonal events to festivals, classes, date-night ideas and things for different ages and stages.

Check the calendar when you've got an unexpected free afternoon, an open evening or a weekend that needs a little something.

You may find an adventure five minutes away that you didn't even know was happening.

🐝 Find Your Family Buzz at TheBuzzyB.com

And sign up for the FREE weekly Buzzy B newsletter for even more local events, guides, recipes, crafts and ideas delivered every Wednesday.

Making parenting easier and more fun. 💗🐝