Archives for 2012

I’m exercising again. Once every nine months or so I like to give the whole fitness thing a good college try. So far I’ve had about ten consecutive days that involved me doing something that actually required a sports bra, tennis shoes and sweat. I’ve been eating healthier and trying my darnedest to rejoin my real life after a year of sporadic travel, hectic hours and less than stellar eating habits.

I’ve actually eaten breakfast, juiced carrots and made myself go to sleep early. I’m beginning to feel more like myself— more rested and relaxed. Since my kids opted out of most of their after school activities this year, I’ve even gotten creative and tried to include the whole family in my new lifestyle.

Sunday afternoon I made a proposition to my family, “Let’s lay down and rest for a little bit and when we get up we’ll all go for a walk on the levy.”

Sadie, my three-year-old, squealed and clapped her hands, “The WHOLE FAMILY?!”

“Yep. The whole family. Even Moses!” I said referencing our new black lab.

Everyone was excited by this idea and found a quiet corner to read or nap for an hour. After a little cat nap, I hopped up and got dressed and yelled for everyone else to get ready. Aubrey, my eight-year-old, was already dressed, she slipped on some flip flops and waited by the door. Emma, six-years-old, heard the word ‘levy’ and made the leap to ‘river’ and ‘swimming’ and showed up at the front door in her two piece bathing suit. Sadie had sunglasses, tennis shoes, a doll sized baby sling and had her favorite baby doll strapped to her chest.

Realizing that we were going to be moving at a snail’s pace I told Emma to change clothes, told my husband who was in the kitchen filling a water bottle that me and Aubrey and Sadie were going to start walking.

He nodded vaguely.

Moses lost his mind when he saw us all outside and after wrestling with him briefly, I finally got him on his leash. We were about three houses away from home when Zeb came running up behind us with a water bottle in his hand. “Where’s Emma?” He asked casually.

“She was with you. She was standing in the kitchen with you when I told you we were going ahead. Go get her.”

He turned and jogged back to the house returning shortly with our middle child. Bless her heart. We had barely made it to the levy when Sadie started asking for something to eat.

“Honey, we will be back home in a few minutes and you can eat then.”

Aubrey dragged her flip flops in the dust and gravel sending clouds of red dust in the air and coating my legs.

“Please pick up your feet and walk,” I requested.

Moses was off the leash running and playing while Sadie screamed at him like a panicked mother, “No Moses! NO!! Oh no! Moses! Don’t go down dere! Dat’s so dangerous!! Moses, here!! HERE!!!”

Emma came skidding up beside me on her bike, slamming on her brakes and throwing herself to the ground.

“Oh my knee!! MY KNEE!” She cried.

“I WANT A SNACK!!!!” Sadie cried.

Aubrey rolled her eyes. “I’m bored and it’s hot.” She reached out to hand Sadie an apple she had apparently gotten from her Daddy and accidentally dropped it in the dust. I’d have picked it up and wiped it off and shoved it in Sadie’s mouth if Moses hadn’t chosen that exact second to come running by and pick the apple up like it was a tennis ball.

Sadie screeched, “MY APPLE!!!!”

Emma, “My KNEE! Momma, HOLD ME!”

“I quit.” I said. “Turn around we’re going home.” I herded and cajoled and wrestled Moses back onto his leash.

“But I don’t want to go home,” Sadie moaned.

Moses wrapped himself around my legs, taking the leash with him. Zeb saw something in my eyes that alarmed him and took the leash from my hand. With Sadie on his back, Moses’ leash in his hand and Emma riding on her bike beside him, he lead the trek home. All four hundred feet.

If muttering cuss words under your breath burned calories, I’d have lost twenty pounds on the walk home.

It happens to me on a regular basis. I push my cart into the grocery store, bribing my three-year-old with my iPhone to sit in the seat. I chat with her as I wander through the produce trying to find a banana that’s not the same color as the limes and I’ll bump into a Mommy acquaintance. We are both a mess wearing faded out yoga pants with our dirtyish hair pulled back in a sloppy ponytail. My youngest daughter Sadie has dressed herself: kitten rain boots (90 degrees and sunny), hot pink leotard with rhinestones bedazzled around the neck and one of her sister’s miniskirts hanging off her hips.

“Hey Robin!” Tired Mommy says.

“Hey! How are you? Where are the rest of your kids?” I’ll ask.

“Oh soccer practice, gotta be back at the field in a few minutes. Then pick Princess up from dance. Then we have art tomorrow, and karate. And Boy Scouts. And piano lessons…” and on and on and on it goes.

I usually walk away from these conversations feeling guilty.

Thoughts race through my head. My kids don’t do enough. They aren’t going to know how to do any of that. if they decide they want to play soccer when they are 10-years-old they are already going to be six years behind everyone else. 

Last year my five-year-old and my seven-year-old took dance. They seemed to enjoy it through out the year but when it came recital time Emma, my five-year-old, balked. More literally? She lost her mind. She threw a fit worthy of Toddlers & Tiaras and refused to put on her clothes to go to the dress rehearsal. My husband was out of town on business and so I called upon the Fount of All Wisdom– my mother.

I explained that Emma had lost her mind and was refusing to put on the most elaborate and sparkly costume I had ever seen. I had paid for her to take dance all year and now she was refusing to dance.

“I feel like I should make her do it. I’m the adult, right? Doesn’t she need to learn to finish what she started?” I asked.

“But she didn’t start it. You did. You signed her up to see if she liked and guess what? She doesn’t. Move on. Nobody cares,” my mother said.

I let Emma off the hook. She held my hand and smiled when we dropped her older sister off at the rehearsal. She practically beamed from her seat as her friends danced on stage and she watched.

I feel guilty because my kids don’t do enough, then feel guilty when I make them participate.

I came to the point where I had to make a decision for our family. By the time I pick my kids up from school I have already gone grocery shopping, cooked dinner, put the baby down for a nap, worked at least a few hours from home, done laundry, and picked up around the house. After school we barely have time to eat dinner and do homework before it’s time to bathe and get in the bed.

I’ve had to decide what my kids will remember of their childhoods.

I am the anti-soccer mom. I believe in building forts and jumping into creeks. I believe in eating popsicles and letting them drip down your elbows and ruining your good shirt. I believe in spraying the trampoline with a water hose and digging in the dirt for worms. I believe in playing hide and go seek until the street lights come on and your Momma has to call you inside more than once. I believe in making my kids take a bath before dinner because they are so dirty from simply being kids that they can’t possibly sit at my table. And I believe in sitting at the table and looking them in the eyes every night instead of chauffeuring them all over town to events they show no interest in.

Aubrey and Emma chose not to take dance again this year. Aubrey asked if she could take piano lessons and I agreed. I asked Emma if there was anything new she would like to try. She tucked herself beside me on the couch and slipped her tiny arm around my neck and whispered, “I just wanna be wif you Momma.”

That is time worth investing.