The Crazy Busy Train

I think, that even though we are only midway through this year, this year will be known as a transformative year in our family...

I'll start with me...

My major gripe for the past couple of years is that we have become waaay to busy.  I don't push activities on the kids, so I guess it is more of a gullible thing - I'm a "YES!" mom.  You want to try dance?  Yes!  Gymnastics?  Yes!  Art class?  Yes!  I am prone to fall for the power of suggestion.. If something comes through our homeschool group list that sounds interesting, I ask the kids, and naturally they want to try it.  School began to take a backseat.  Life began to take a backseat.  We were just driving to one 'experience' after another.  All experiences the kids wanted to do, of course, and all experiences of merit, but absolutely nothing was taking priority...other than to try and make it semi-on time and have plenty of snacks in the car.

I am on activity overload.  So... now I am working hard to reverse course.  I am subtracting and adding things, with simplification as the focus.  I am not sitting in the board of our homeschool group anymore, so I'm not dealing with membership squabbles...  I quit a month ago, and it has been soooo nice.  I am not chained to my computer or iPhone anymore!  I agreed to step back into a leadership position with our girl scout troop, but I am sharing the workload with another mom, who has great ideas and a fantastic positive energy.  I will be guiding the Brownies, and she will be guiding the Daisies.  I will have about 6-7 girls, and she will have 5-6.  We had such a fabulous year this past year that I really don't see any additional stress coming from this - maybe just on the front end, as we get our upcoming year planned out.

My only other major stressor right now is doctor appointment overload.  I will be doing two physical therapy appointments a week (for my shoulder) through to the end of July, along with 1-2 other progress checkups with the doctor.  I am trying my hardest not to overdo it at home...but I am hoping that if I work diligently with my shoulder exercises, that I may be able to knock off the last week of therapy, by 'passing' early.  We'll see.   I have a long way to go.  I am still working on range of motion - we haven't even addressed the ability to push and pull and work with any kind of weight yet.   Now that is just me and my appointments.  We have also had the yearly appointment schtuff for the kids these past couple of months.  All four went to the dentist (no cavities!), all but Rylan had their annual physical, three went to the eye doctor - Jordan goes next month (yay - no glasses....yet!), the dermatologist(3x), the orthodontist, the psychiatrist, blood draw for Jordan, and a repeat hearing test for Owen.  This is when having four kids SUCKS.  Thank goodness for insurance, and THANK GOODNESS everybody is healthy.  I can't discount that.. that means everything.  I've counted them up - between all of us we have had 28 doctor appointments in the past 8 weeks.  Sigh.

I can't just blow off the need for doctor appointments - they are a necessary evil.  But with my unruly crew, each appointment stresses me out.  They mess with stuff, fight, ask for candy at the front desk, and test the acoustics of every room they enter.  At least with the dentist, I can get them all seen at the same time, and they can all give each other moral support from adjacent dental exam chairs, lol...  and they have an awesome play area for the kids to blow off steam before and after the appointment.  We actually like going to the dentist.  I was able to combine Owen's and Colin's annual physicals this year, so that was one less trip.  It was cute, they sat side-by-side, and the doctor would tap the knee on one, and then the other.  Look in the mouth of one, and then the other.  Since Colin is refusing to do most things lately, this actually worked out great.  He liked having Owen by his side, for once.  He didn't even try to shove him off the table.

So.  How do you get off the Crazy Busy Train?  I am taking a lot of advice to heart from a book that I am currently reading, Simplicity Parenting, by Kim John Payne, M.Ed.  It has a strong Waldorf approach, but it completely makes sense.  It addresses simplifying a child's environment, rhythm, schedule and filtering out the adult world.  These are all things our family desperately needs.  We have too much stuff on the calendar, in the closets, on the floor, in our heads and weighing on our hearts.

Jordan...

Even before I began reading this book and contemplating some changes that we could make, Jordan addressed this issue head-on last month, the week of his birthday.  He had a meltdown.  Not an angry episode...just a 'TOO MUCH!!!' sort of thing.  He actually broke down and cried on the way to karate.  He did NOT want to go.  He was ready to quit, for a whole host of completely valid reasons.  He hated that we always had to drop what we were doing and leave to go to karate.  (he goes 5x a week).  He felt like karate was mostly work, and not really fun anymore.  (Nobody gave him the impression that earning a Black Belt was going to be all fun and games...).  I think some of this was a classic teenage hormone stress response, because he did feel better about it a couple days later...  After I made him explain to the sensai that he was quitting.  As of right now, he is on the fence about whether or not he will go back.  Right now he says he is "on a break".  We all know how that goes...

Rylan...

Funny enough, Rylan had her own karate-related breakdown last week.  She had the tears, the drama, and same explanation.  Too much stuff to do, and she didn't enjoy karate anymore.  This saves us a combined $200 a month, 150 miles per week of driving (plus gas), and $90 dollars every 9 weeks for testing fees.  Plus, we gain back 11 hours of time that we desperately need to give back to schooling - plus the before-and-after time that we lose to getting ready to leave and getting back into school mode.  So how can I complain???  I feel terrible about it anyway.  I like the instructors and the relationships the kids and I have made with them over the past 2 1/2 years.  I like that the kids were challenged mentally and physically (plus, it counted for P.E. time!!!), and how much it improved their confidence.  Karate is absolutely a worthwhile endeavor (albeit an expensive one), and I was proud that our kids were doing it.  Dean is thrilled.  He has always thought that they were a 'belt-mill', and there may be a shred of truth to that, but when I see Jordan, at the hint of any kind of physical threat, go instinctively into guardian stance, I know it was worth it.

Owen...

Owen started gymnastics last Sept., along with karate.  He earned his white belt, and then promptly quit.  He didn't like it at all.  I had quietly let gymnastics go as we had continued the karate Sept and Oct, because karate was 'free' (multiple sibling discount), and gymnastics wasn't.  It took Owen a few months to figure out that he hadn't been to gymnastics in awhile... (he's quick, isn't he??).  So, after a very effective badgering campaign, he started up again in January.  It lasted five weeks.  He left class early two times in row, in tears, for some perceived infraction on the part of who-knows-what...  Now he is at it again, asking - on an almost daily basis, when he can go back to gymnastics.  What do I do?  I want him to have 'something', but he doesn't have a terrific track record of sticking with anything..

Dean...

Don't get me started.  Dean took over the Troop Master position in Oct/Nov, and it was a huge undertaking.  There are 50 some scouts in the troop, and a lot of them are on the younger side.  In the past month or so, the stress has been ratcheted up unbelievably high, as he organized the troop tribute to the previous Troop Master as part of his Wood Badge ticket, and then there was summer camp.  For the second year in a row, summer camp has been derailed by a forest fire forcing the evacuation of the chosen summer camp location.  The day before departure (this past Sunday, Father's Day), many adults were scrambling to assemble new contact information, merit badge schedules and equipment lists as they prepared to go to a secondary camp location.  For a month now, we have had to tip-toe around the premises as Dean tried his best to keep up with work requirements, house stuff and scouts.  It hasn't been fun.  For any of us.  I will be so glad when this week is over and the boys are back from camp, and I can have my husband back.  Sorry troop 191, but some of you needy helicopter parents can just shove off - we have a family that desperately needs some no-stress family time!