School is starting again. That means activities are starting again. Which means I'm going to be a glorified chauffer again; particularly since Air Force Guy is deployed and I don't have emergency back up. I am really not looking forward to this.
I cut my children's activities down to one sport and one activity each. But there are three of them still at home, one of me, and oh-by-the-way don't forget CCD and the extras (like cookie booths and camping trips, swim and gymnastics meets) that go along with their activities. So this year we have one in swim team (practice 4x a week), one in gymnastics (2x a week), one Junior Girl Scout, one Cadette Girl Scout, one Tiger Scout, and one mixed sport class (thankfully only once a week). I couldn't get all the kids in CCD the same day of the week (because there was a time problem with Girl Scouts), and you can be guaranteed that there will be at least one trip to the hospital for a cracked head (a yearly event with one particularly active child of mine), some ear infections, and one of the dogs will find my secret chocolate stash and need an emergency trip to the vet after befouling my house.
All of this leads me to the only conclusion possible in such an instance. I need a wife of my own. That way maybe we can also fit dinner, laundry, and house cleaning in there.
I also have a few observations about this. First, I wish all my children would do swim team. The smell of chlorine is clean and fresh. The one that does gymnastics comes home smelling like dirty feet. And getting caught in a crowd of the gymnastics kids? Lots of dirty feet. And the mixed sports class full of six year old boys? Pee-YEW.
Second, I REALLY owe all those amazing volunteers who understand that there isn't enough of me to go around and provide such excellent programs for my kids without much help from me. These people make the world go 'round, for sure, and I know very well that I do not show nearly enough gratitude for everything that they do. We do not live in a heavily military area, and most of the volunteers that we deal with are civilians. There may be a lot of instances in which communication gets missed in civilian-to-militarese translation, but on the whole they keep our family afloat. I think I need to get them special t-shirts that say "TEAM DEPLOYMENT" or something, because they most certainly are hardworking and vital members of the team here.
Third, with one child already out of the house, I realize that even though it feels like we will be doing this forever, the amount of time involved is actually finite. And with the amount of free time I'll have when all the kids are done is scary. I might get into even more trouble than I do now. And that should scare everyone. Good thing we've got about twelve years of this left - you all have time to prepare.
So with the topic being crazy schedules, I want to hear yours. Because if there's one thing that makes me feel better and move on in life it's knowing that I'm not the only one defying the laws that govern the time-space continuum to get to practices and meets on time!
