Calendar Crazed...

Does your monthly planner look like this?  

 I'll bet it does.... 

Probably even busier than this one...

How do you keep it together??? 

How do you orchestrate the daily after school activities, 

appointments, 

meetings and errands?  

Do you pray for cancellations?  

Do you remember to bring the post football snacks 

and to make sure you are driving 

the bigger car for the CCD carpool?
The one that seats six?

Do your parents shake their heads 

at your NASCAR fast 

and Grand Central Station hectic schedule?  

If you said yes to any of these questions, 

you are NORMAL...  

Life is different than when our parents 

were soccer- momming us around...  

In fact, there was a lot less driving 

and a lot more biking, busing and walking...  

If I could get there on my bicycle, off I went... 

I was a busy kid, but not like today's children...

Brownies and maybe after school sports
 at Logan Elementary filled my list
 of extracurricular activities...

As I got older there were piano lessons,
golf lessons at Oakwood Country Club (I stank at golf)
and a short lived stint learning the viola (larger cousin of the violin)...

The music gene was lost on my family...

Thank God we could at least draw and paint...

I played some tennis and a lot of softball... 
My parents tried to attend games when they could,
but I did not expect them to always be there. 
I had some friends whose parents never came to watch. 
They probably had to work or they had other reasons... 

The late Nora Ephron hit the nail on the head when she said, 

"Parenting carried with it the implicit assumption that any time is quality time if the parent is in attendance.  As a result, you were required to be in attendance at the most mundane activities-to watch, cheer lead, and, if necessary, coach, even if this meant throwing your weekend away by driving three hours and twenty minutes in each direction so that you could sit in a dark, hot locker room next door to a gym where your beloved child was going down to resounding defeat in a chess tournament you were not allowed to observe because your mere presence in the room would put unfair pressure on him or her."  

We, as parents seem consumed with guilt to provide our kids, 

over and far above that which we were either given 

or deprived as children long ago... 

If we work outside of the home, 

we feel guilty for not being at every school wide concert... 

If we stay at home, 

we feel guilty that we aren't working moms;
good role models for our sons and daughters... 

We live in competitive fear that if Susie 

is not a flat out genius,
 hasn't volunteered at the Red Cross
and hasn't lettered in three sports
while serving as student class president,
she won't ever get into Yale...  

It's become too crazy, 

too pressurized for our kids and for ourselves...  

I don't pretend to have any answers, 

but I hope that I instill a little moderation 

and choice into my kids' lives...  

While I prefer they go to some sort of college 

and that they choose careers that 

pay more than minimum wage, 

ultimately they will make their own life choices,
whether I agree with those choices or not...  

I am not going to mold them 

into mini me's or even me wannabe's... 

So our calendar is busy, 

but with activities that they like to do 

(with the exception of CCD)... 

In this world, it's not easy to be relaxed 

about your kids and their futures...  

For all we know, the preppers are smarter than we take them to be, 

the water supply will run out by 2050, 

Medicare will be defunct before we retire 

or the Mayan calendar was right all along...  

Until then, I am going to let my ankle biters run like wild things 

after school on the playground 

and to take a pass on the Mandarin lessons for now...

It's time to lighten up and to think about Halloween!  

Here is a great drink recipe found on Pinterest, of course...

Courtesy of Pass the Sushi...