“More Play” Is My 2026 Phrase

Motherhood has come with some of the best (and most humbling) lessons, but one of my personal favorites is learning how to truly take care of myself by taking care of another. I wasn’t expecting it — I thought pre-baby me knew how to take care of herself. But there’s something magical about the moment you become a mom, the moment you start pouring all of your love and energy into raising this tiny babe, and how it impacts how you care for your own self.

I feel that more deeply this New Year’s Eve than ever before.

I don’t remember where I heard it for the first time, but there’s a solid piece of advice I’ve clung to over the last 11+ years of motherhood: “Treat yourself like you treat your children.” You know, put yourself to bed at a decent hour. Go outside, read books, eat foods that make you feel good.

And give yourself lots of space for play.

2025 has been a lot, and if the social media trends have proven anything, it’s that people want more play. More hobbies, more joy, more fun. They want to go on a walk without tracking it, they want to do arts and crafts without worrying about how it’ll look in an Instagram post, they want to use a cookbook for dinner recipes.

So I’m making it my own New Year’s resolution: more play.

I’m tired of feeling tired. I’m tired of seeing a stack of board games in our living room that never get played. I’m tired of saving “good puzzles” for special occasions and then never having the time to put them together. I’m tired of entire days going by where I don’t sit outside on my front porch or throw a ball or use a funny voice. I’m tired of stressing about play — about trying to make it a chore with weekly themed dinners or special “yes days” or giant bucket lists I bought off of Etsy.

I just want to play.

I don’t want to get hyper-focused on hobbies or on trends or on finding some new thing to try. I just want to do the things that I find fun, the things that bring me joy, the things that make me playful.

My mom bought me a pair of roller skates for Christmas — my first pair since I was a kid and my family owned a skating rink — and when I told her I wanted them, her first response was, “But will you actually use them?” And she’s right. I am notorious for wanting fun things and then never actually using them. I have a fondue set in my cabinet I begged my husband for that’s never made its way out. We have a beautiful fire pit we never sit around. We have board games we’ve never opened.

And I’m sad about it. I want more play in my life.

I want to take a break from work and go throw the ball with my dog for 15 minutes. I want to play records while I cook dinner and have a dance break in the kitchen with my kids. I want to have a picnic in the backyard with my girls and read books under the trees. I want to go on a walk and stop to pick up every interesting leaf, weed, and blade of grass I find and press them in between the pages of a book when I get home. I want to sit at the kitchen table with construction paper and sequins and a glue stick and go to town. I want to play hide-and-seek with my kids and feel the thrill of being found rise up through my body until I giggle out loud under the trampoline.

I. Want. To. Play.

Every year, I tell myself I’m going to use New Year’s resolutions to find more joy. I already feel like I’m pretty good at finding light and enjoying the small things, but I always get caught up in the ritual parts of everything. I want things to be daily occurrences, and I want specific things to happen weekly, and I worry that if I don’t make joy a routine, then it won’t happen at all.

So instead of making a list of demands and rules I know I’ll get overwhelmed by immediately, I’m just making “play” be my 2026 word. Because “play” can mean so much to all of us. Playing with my kids, playing a game with my husband, playing a podcast on a walk — it all feels right to me. And in a decade (phew) that has tried to break us in every single way, I’m so eager to treat myself like I do my kids, to tell myself the same thing I tell my girls: Let it go, babe. Go play.