The Mommies' Diaries…Parenting, One Blog at a Time.

I am so sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner…

This seems to be how I start all my email messages lately. I am waving the white flag.  I am overwhelmed.

This time of year is crazy for all parents of school age children.  Judging from my playground conversations, everyone is feeling the pressure and ready for summer. For me in particular, the past few months I’ve felt like I am barely keeping my head above water.  I have three children and we have been juggling 5 different sports teams since February. Both of my daughters play club (but not on the same team, of course), one of my daughters plays lacrosse and the other plays softball.  My son plays baseball and my husband coaches his team. I am the team mom for two of these various teams.

Let me just state for the record that this is simply too much to manage.  We knew this back in January, and we knew this would be a rough spring. Now that we are here in May and all these sports are winding down, I am so very tired and omgweareneverdoingthisagain.

One of my twins, Avery, has been playing club soccer for the past three years. When she first tried out, her twin sister, Macy, didn’t really have any interest. After watching her sister play for one year, Macy wanted to try out.  The tryouts were three afternoons in a row.  She went to one tryout and decided it wasn’t for her. Then last fall, as Avery was gearing up for tryouts yet again, Macy decided she would like to try out too.  After the first tryout, I was surprised that she wanted to go back. Then I was surprised again when she seemed to be sticking with it.  But I know my kids and I knew club soccer would lose its charm for Macy eventually. To make a long story short, it took Macy half way through the Spring season to realize that club soccer was not for her.  We are not quitters though, and she is sticking it out through June.

Some might judge my choice to let her join a team, knowing that she would lose her enthusiasm. However, again, I know my kids and I she had to experience it and learn for herself. Otherwise she would be watching her sister at try outs each fall and wondering. It may be at the price of my sanity, but at least now she knows.

In addition to making sure everyone has all the gear, water, energy bars, clean socks and proper footwear for all their games and practices, I seem to have bitten off more than I can chew as a school volunteer this year.  I didn’t take on any large, major jobs, but rather a whole bunch of smaller, what seemed like more manageable jobs. Do you know what you get when you take on several small volunteer jobs?

You get binders. Every volunteer job comes with a binder. I cringe every time I open my desk cupboard and the binders all seem to be saying, “YOU WERE SUPPOSED TO HAVE THOSE NOTES DONE TWO WEEKS AGO” or “WHEN ARE YOU GOING TO SEND THOSE EMAILS AND UPDATE THAT SPREADSHEET!” I want to set fire to the binders right now.

When I run in to people, their first words are usually, “did you get my email about…”  Yes, I got your email and I am getting to it. Every thing in my life is a day late and a dollar short right now.  I am barely keeping my head above water just trying to stay afloat until summer when I can possibly catch my breath and clean out my gmail in box. And maybe actually meet some deadlines (see this blog post, which was supposed to be done this morning!)

I take all my little projects (and the big ones!) seriously and the frenzied pace we’ve been maintaining has caused me a to flounder in many areas.  I just finished up a big, very close to my heart project and I know I could have given it so much more.  It was amazing and came together far better than I expected, but still.   I don’t like the constant feeling of needing to play catch up. I don’t like starting all my emails with, sorry I didn’t get back to you sooner…