My husband and I have never been big mainstream sports people. He did play basketball his freshman year of high school, but track was his big thing. A few years after we got married, he became a competitive cyclist and began shaving his legs. Definitely not mainstream. I am not athletic. In the least. But, I always loved watching tennis, so my junior year I decided on a whim to join the tennis team. I had fun, played all right, and had an awesome tennis partner (one of my best friends). My senior year I played again. Right up until they bought us new uniforms. The uniforms included skirts, which I found very lame and sexist. Now, don't get me wrong... I've never been a full-fledged tomboy (though I had many, many Matchbox cars as a child and I attended several car races with my dad), and I would have worn a dress to elementary every day if my parents had let me. But, after years of male and female tennis players wearing shorts, reverting back to skirts seemed archaic. I wore my uniform for the yearbook pictures and then I quit.
But, I digress... My point is, we are not the types of parents to get our children involved in sports at an early age. Our pediatrician agreed that age 9 was really early enough to have them in team sports. I was fine with that. Yes, that means that our children are far less likely to qualify for any varsity team in the future. We're okay with that. We decided early on that we would only sign them up for something if they asked to participate in it. We also agreed to not let any one child participate in more than two activities at a time (that would include clubs or music lessons). Over the years, our oldest has tried karate (which he was great at, but didn't love going to class twice a week), soccer (through our church in IA, which has a great program focused more on fun than competitiveness), and a couple years of basketball through parks and rec (one awesome experience and one terrible... all came down to the difference in the volunteer coaches). He also attempted soccer last winter here in WA since all of his friends were playing. Didn't love it. At all. Instead, he participated in chess all through 5th grade and qualified for the elementary state chess tournament. He took golf and tennis lessons this summer and enjoyed both, but neither sport is offered until high school. This year, he is running cross country with the middle school, and he'll likely attempt track in the spring.
Our daughter did a year of ballet, jazz, and tap in kindergarten. Her recital was adorable, but the poor children had to be in not one, but two four-hour long shows in one day. She decided that weekend that she was done with dance. She, too, tried soccer at church but didn't love it. Last year, she began riding lessons at a horse ranch. This seems to be her non-mainstream "thing."
Our youngest hasn't asked to participate in anything yet, and we're okay with that. He might give chess a try later this year, might try horse riding next year, and we think he'd love karate, but we'll see...
So it would seem that we should not really be all that busy as a family, right? We're not running to soccer (or baseball or football) practice every day after school or to games every weekend. And yet... the calendar still fills right up. I have plenty to keep track of and manage.
Since middle school starts an hour before elementary out here, a few moms in our neighborhood started a little carpooling group for our middle school boys. I only have to drive the four of them on Tuesday mornings; other mornings my son is picked up by one of three other moms. Because he is the only one of those boys in cross country, we are in another carpool for those practices. I pick them up on Tuesdays and every third Friday (they don't have practice on Wednesdays). L has drum lessons Monday evenings (he previously took two years of piano and one of drums in IA).
Wednesdays really are our crazy day... E has a piano lesson (albeit right down the street) at 7:30 in the morning. Once I have the younger two to school, I have Bible study. The elementary gets out early every Wednesday, so I pick them up at 1:10 and take my daughter to her riding lesson, which is three hours long. After we pick her up, we go to church (which is 20+ minutes away) for dinner and leave L for youth group. He is brought home by another parent that doesn't live too far away so we don't have to go back for him at 8:00. I am helping as a table leader at MOPS for one final year on the 2nd & 4th Thursdays of each month. When I am home, I often work on my new part time job, which is being the "content coordinator/editor" for a local magazine.
Now our oldest wants to join the Science Olympiad team, which will probably meet once a week. I don't know yet... We don't want to deter him from participating in something so educational. But, it's one more thing to add to the schedule. I have mentioned before, I am beginning to feel more like a "stay-in-the-car mom" than a stay-at-home mom. And the littlest guy isn't even involved in anything yet! Next year, I'd like to get him into beginning piano lessons. The thought of adding more to the calendar kind of makes my head spin.
Not sure how other families handle all of those seemingly-constant practices and games; especially when they have three, four, or even more children involved in different activities! Our children will only be young once. Right now, all three of ours are out in the woods behind our yard enjoying the sunny Saturday. I am relieved we don't have a game to be attending. We even skipped the cross country meet this morning because it was two hours away on the coast. Instead, we slept in (well, I slept in), had pancakes, and lazed around on Minecraft before heading outdoors. Life is busy enough without filling any more time with practices, games, or lessons. I am content to be home with my family as much as possible. :)
Saturday, September 19, 2015
Thursday, September 3, 2015
The Importance of Flexibility
Yes, I did teach yoga for nearly 8 years and have been a practitioner many, many more than that... But, that's not the kind of flexibility I am talking about today.
As parents, we know that the best-laid plans sometimes have to go by the way side. Someone gets sick, the weather doesn't cooperate, someone makes a few bad choices and loses the privilege of experiencing whatever we planned, etc. That is why I typically go in to my ABC summer plans with several "Plan B"s in place.
Those who followed our adventures this summer know that I really went out on a limb (for me, anyway) and changed the way we celebrated the letters. I still couldn't do the alphabet out of order (I just wouldn't be able to sleep at night...), but I did decide that we'd go through the entire alphabet not once, not twice, but THREE times in one summer! The kids loved the idea, and in implementation, they still loved it. Somehow, it made the summer seem longer to them.
At the end of our summer, though, we had to be even more flexible than ever planned. I had been waiting excitedly all summer long for our final O activity: going to OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry), which is supposed to amazing. I had on the calendar that my oldest had cross country practice late that afternoon and 6th grade orientation, which I assumed would be in the evening since parents were highly encouraged (i.e. expected) to attend. About a week before that date, I got an email with details about said orientation. It was scheduled from 1:30-4:30 in the afternoon. As for cross country, practice was moved to mid-morning. There was a whole day shot. No going to OMSI, after all.
A couple days after that informative email, my husband's dear grandma Helen passed away. When his other grandma, Violetta, left us in March, he went back to IA for the funeral and only took our oldest. Violetta had suffered from Alzheimer's for several years, and he was the only one of our children who had memories of her before that. Since we were all very close to Helen, we reassured the younger two back in March that when her time came, we'd all travel back to celebrate her life. In July when we road tripped back to IA, we visited Helen and she showed us all around her new care facility. It was beautiful, and she was in great spirits that day. That's why we were surprised when just over a month later, she was gone. We promptly decided to purchase plane tickets and head back.
That meant leaving the day after L's 6th grade orientation (Whew! So glad he didn't miss that!). Which, in turn, meant that we'd be missing not only the letter O, but also letters P-V. Because our Q activity was something that I absolutely did not want to miss, we included it on our N day earlier that week (it was finding the statue of Ramona Quimby in Portland). As for the other letters, I let go control and told the kiddos that we were skipping the final round of them and we'd pick up with W when we returned. They were a little reluctant to give it up and pointed out that we'd be packing ourselves into a plane on P day. Ahhh, they are related to me. ;)
We ended the alphabet as planned after we returned three days before school started. It was very bittersweet to end our final blow-out ABC summer, but our youngest is now officially a Kindergartner. Not sure how we got here, but here we are. I have the next couple of summers loosely planned, but my children are already asking what we'll do after that. We'll just have to remain flexible and see, I guess!
As parents, we know that the best-laid plans sometimes have to go by the way side. Someone gets sick, the weather doesn't cooperate, someone makes a few bad choices and loses the privilege of experiencing whatever we planned, etc. That is why I typically go in to my ABC summer plans with several "Plan B"s in place.
Those who followed our adventures this summer know that I really went out on a limb (for me, anyway) and changed the way we celebrated the letters. I still couldn't do the alphabet out of order (I just wouldn't be able to sleep at night...), but I did decide that we'd go through the entire alphabet not once, not twice, but THREE times in one summer! The kids loved the idea, and in implementation, they still loved it. Somehow, it made the summer seem longer to them.
At the end of our summer, though, we had to be even more flexible than ever planned. I had been waiting excitedly all summer long for our final O activity: going to OMSI (the Oregon Museum of Science & Industry), which is supposed to amazing. I had on the calendar that my oldest had cross country practice late that afternoon and 6th grade orientation, which I assumed would be in the evening since parents were highly encouraged (i.e. expected) to attend. About a week before that date, I got an email with details about said orientation. It was scheduled from 1:30-4:30 in the afternoon. As for cross country, practice was moved to mid-morning. There was a whole day shot. No going to OMSI, after all.
A couple days after that informative email, my husband's dear grandma Helen passed away. When his other grandma, Violetta, left us in March, he went back to IA for the funeral and only took our oldest. Violetta had suffered from Alzheimer's for several years, and he was the only one of our children who had memories of her before that. Since we were all very close to Helen, we reassured the younger two back in March that when her time came, we'd all travel back to celebrate her life. In July when we road tripped back to IA, we visited Helen and she showed us all around her new care facility. It was beautiful, and she was in great spirits that day. That's why we were surprised when just over a month later, she was gone. We promptly decided to purchase plane tickets and head back.
That meant leaving the day after L's 6th grade orientation (Whew! So glad he didn't miss that!). Which, in turn, meant that we'd be missing not only the letter O, but also letters P-V. Because our Q activity was something that I absolutely did not want to miss, we included it on our N day earlier that week (it was finding the statue of Ramona Quimby in Portland). As for the other letters, I let go control and told the kiddos that we were skipping the final round of them and we'd pick up with W when we returned. They were a little reluctant to give it up and pointed out that we'd be packing ourselves into a plane on P day. Ahhh, they are related to me. ;)
We ended the alphabet as planned after we returned three days before school started. It was very bittersweet to end our final blow-out ABC summer, but our youngest is now officially a Kindergartner. Not sure how we got here, but here we are. I have the next couple of summers loosely planned, but my children are already asking what we'll do after that. We'll just have to remain flexible and see, I guess!
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