More Than I Wanted To Handle…

I have come to a realization.  I almost lied about it, but I’m not going to do that.  I almost said, “I’ve taken on more than I can handle,” in this current influx of kids’ activities and scheduling, but anyone who knows me also knows that I thrive on stress and deadlines and schedules that don’t humanly work.  I didn’t take on more than I can handle, but I did take on more than I wanted to handle, and that might be a more significant problem.

Today was rough.  Part of our family went in one direction for the Sterling Invitational and the rest of us stayed home to participate in Upward.  And this is probably going to be harder to explain than I thought, because the problem wasn’t really that we were separated.  We’re a family of seven.  We do a lot of things in “groups”.  It’s not a separation anxiety thing, either.  Although I love being with my whole family, the best; I actually enjoy being away from them on occasion, as well.  When I can get away for an entire weekend, alone; I do it.  When Phil and I can get away, just the two of us; we treasure that time.  Grace and I went to Florida, by ourselves, for a week once.  And I’ve always been really big on having special “date nights” with each of the kids so they can have my undivided attention at least some of the time.  So…  it wasn’t that we weren’t together.  It was that I wanted to be where I wasn’t…

Hmmm…  I’m almost tempted to write an analogy… almost, but not quite…

I’m not exactly sure what this means for us in the upcoming years.  We’re not going to be able to limit the kids to activities that never conflict with one another.  But I think we are going to have to limit them to things they’re good at… things they love… and (most importantly) things they legitimately should be doing…  uh… things that have purpose?  Sounds just awful, right?

I don’t ever again want to find myself in the midst of one of my children’s activities thinking, “I really wish I wasn’t here right now”.  There’s something wrong about that.  I’m not saying that you can go through life doing only the things you want to do, either, but I do think there comes a point when you have to choose what is best.  We’re at that point.

L. 

PS  Despite how I felt about this day, Ian is awfully cute: