(For the beginning of my series on rhythm, please look here, then here)

(helping me with the laundry)
"What gift do you think a good servant has that separates them from the others? It's the gift of anticipation. And I'm a good servant. I'm better than good. I'm the best. I'm the perfect servant. I know when they'll be hungry and the food is ready. I know when they'll be tired and the bed is turned down. I know it before they know it themselves."
Helen Mirren in Gosford Park

(dishes to be put away)
I admit it, I've been kind of dreading this post. I've been trying to wrap my mind around how to explain rhythm, our rhythm, to you, in a way that would make sense. In a way that would be helpful. Then last night I was watching Gosford Park and Helen Mirren said that line and it clicked.
Creating meaningful rhythm for your children is about anticipation. Anticipation of their needs, both momentary and overarching. That anticipation is what keeps a rhythm from becoming routine, and what keeps it working for all of you. Rhythm is a very delicate dance that requires constantly tuning in to the needs of your family.

(someone else doing laundry)
The thing is, those needs are always changing. Just as your children are always changing, growing, learning, your family is constantly in an act of re-creation. Your family is alive with its own rhythm, breathing in and out, becoming something else. Anticipation is the dance of being one step ahead at the same time as you look two steps behind. It's both taking everything into account, and moving forward from where you are.
But wait, you're thinking. How is that rhythmical? How does that work? Isn't that just more chaos? Well, no. The important deciding factor for me is, am I doing what's really important at the times at which they are really important? Am I creating an overall sense of warmth? Of reverence? Is there enough repetition? Enough opportunities for imitation? Is what I'm doing nourishing my family?

(silks waiting for someone to play)
Now here is the part I've been dreading, a little. Would you like to see our rhythm? Here is what our day looks like- and I'm going to go much further into the "essentials" in later posts, so don't worry that I've glossed over them here:
- Wake. Daddy gets up with the big girls, and they play while I stay in bed with baby Bee until she wakes up (she usually sleeps in a half hour or so past the big girls). But I might get up and let her sleep if I can tell I'm needed, or if Bee is sleeping longer than usual, or...
- Breakfast. I always cook something warm. Unless of course someone just threw up or something. You know how it goes.
- Housework time. Unless my mom drops by. Or maybe the sun comes out for the first time in weeks. You know.
- Outside play. Unless it's hailing. Or perhaps we'd rather do some dancing. Or, you know.
- Lunch. I always cook something warm. Unless it's the middle of summer and it's too hot. Or maybe we're all sick. Or, well...
Do you see why it's hard for me to write this for you? I can't even get through one portion of our day without there being some sort of exception to the rule.

(blankets waiting to warm)
I have a feeling that it's this way for many of you. That you try and try to have a rhythm of sorts, and you write it out and color code it and everything but then the very next day after you write it down you can't Stick To It, as much as you'd Really Like To, because there is always an extenuating circumstance.
Now. I am all for having a strong rhythm, especially for young children, and even more especially for young children who have really had NO regular rhythm at all. Things like regular mealtimes and bedtimes are absolute standards in our home, not to be broken unless the occasion is extremely out of the ordinary. I believe very much that those things are biologically imperative. However. Life is more complex than that. You are more complex than that. Your family, with all of its changing, shifting beauty, is more complex than that, and aren't you glad that's true?

(dressing up)
Where would be the joy, the grace, the miracles, in the routine? Dancing the dance of anticipation, making rhythmic patterns across the floor with light feet is an supreme act of creating. You are creating every moment of every day. For those of you who don't know how to knit, here is your weaving. For those of you who wonder how you could possibly fit in time to be creative, here is your creative work.

(ready to set sail)
I want to talk about those "essentials" I keep referring to. (By the way, I think they are: mealtimes, bedtime, outside time, movement, imaginative play, and caring for your home.) I'll even be talking about what I really mean when I keep saying: warmth, reverence, imitation, repetition.

(washing up)
But I wanted to start here. With the knowledge that we are building rhythm on an ever-shifting plane of sand.

(the big girls' bed)
I wanted you to know that rhythm is still something you can find solace in, even so.

(rest)