It all started with Michelle Lewis from Ohio, and Jason Clark from California. We met on a bus in Chicago in January of 1992. This is a blog that documents our crazy life.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
And it starts...
Although it is nice having the kids back in school, I don't like the stress that comes with all the activities. There is Activity Day for Alyssa, 11-year-old scouts for Brenden, Boy Scouts for Jared, Dan, and sometimes Caleb, Caleb's job, Drumline, and the list goes on. At least there are no sports at the moment. For whatever reason Dan decided not to do 8th grade football this year. Actually, I think I know the reason. Dan is a natural athlete but doesn't like to work. On the first day of practice, their coach made them run and run and run. Dan was not impressed. I refuse to be one of those parents who push their children to do things that they (the children) don't want to do but I also don't want to raise children that think it is okay to cut and run when things get difficult. Dan did the same thing with the Saxophone. The only reason we let him quit was that we just couldn't afford the instrument. Dan has since found the guitar and is taking lessons. We require our children to have some sort of musical education up into high school but again, don't want to push them into playing an instrument that they do not like. I am still perplexed at Brenden's choice of the Baritone - it is as big as he is. I am glad that Dan has found an instrument that suits his personality. I told him that he was going to have to take choir this year if he didn't want to play an instrument. Jared has been playing trumpet for 2 years now and this year (7th grade) tried out for jazz band. He unfortunately didn't make it but I am hoping that this experience will make him want to work harder so that he will make it next year. I am glad that I wouldn't let Caleb quit in 7th grade like he wanted to. He now really likes band and is getting to be a fairly decent percussionist. He is very talented musically and is also in the West High Men's choir. So anyway, back to the original premise of this post, as important as all these activities are, I get so tired of running around town trying to attend all the pack meetings, concerts, and 10,000 other activities that sometimes I just want to lock myself in my room and sleep for a couple of days. Maybe I just need to go buy a good book. I haven't done that in a while. Any suggestions?
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3 comments:
I am currently getting an idea of what it is like to have multiple kids with lts of activities. I was gone from 4-7:30 just dropping kids off and then picking them up again. (I am babysitting for 2 weeks) As for the book I recently read 2 books by shannon Hale. They are kids books but I enjpyed them they are princess academy and book of a thousand days.
The funny thing about all this is,
Our children with the exception of Daniel are not in any outside activities. (OUTSIDE OF SCHOOL AND CHURCH) I would like to have them in swimming lessons, sports and other hobbies of their chioce, and all sorts of other things, but right now with just the start of school they aren't in anything.
Church activities are all happening on Wednesday nights and that is for every child except for Scott and soon he will be there as well. Daniel has guitar lessons on Tues. afternoons, but that's only for a half hour.
I can't even imagine trying to run them all to a sport of their choice and music lessons for everyone and more. How do people do it?
Soon I have to get Jared, Alyssa and Scott into swimming lessons since they can't swim and I feel it's a necessary thing to learn so we will add that to our lives, but not quite yet.
It's pretty easy to get burned out with all the running around. One night one of my kids was complaining about how I didn't do enough for them and it made me so mad that I locked myself in my bedroom, dug out some paper and a pencil and began to write down as many activities as I could remember with all my kids -- and then calculated (best estimate I could come up with) how many hours in my lifetime I have spent watching a gazillion baseball games, attending ear-wrenching band concerts (beginning years), going to choir, helping with scout stuff, school activities, etc. I started with Jason and worked my way through all the kids. I have the paper somewhere, but it was nearly 1,000 hours if I remember -- and it was all for them, not for me. We had to limit the kids activities because it becomes too hard on them and much to hard on me.
I am now at the point of saying that I love to BE a parent, but I'm weary of parenting. Jim and I look forward to having an empty nest (well, Ammon will always be with us, but won't be nearly as demanding with outside activities).
This is part of helping your kids develop and grow. There's nothing easy and certainly nothing cheap about it. We have insisted that the girls come up with ways to help pay for their own dance lessons because we can't afford it. They used to clean the studio, babysit, etc. Now they assist as teachers or just outright teach the classes themselves. That pays for their lessons.
I'm glad your kids are getting a good feel and experience with music. It's such a good discipline in their lives.
Hang in there -- one of these days your kids will be leaving - and with as close as your kids are, it will happen very quickly. Then you can sleep!
Mom
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