“The happiest moments of my life have been the few which I have passed at home in the bosom of my family.” — Thomas Jefferson
What a wonderful week it has been.
We’ve had an unprecedented four days without organized sports. Afternoon after afternoon of little to do but make a fire in the living room, drink hot chocolate around it, enjoy a leisurely dinner, and do homework around the dining room table. Such simple things. Simple things I have missed during the past two-and-a-half months of absolute overscheduling.
Sawyer & Noah, regulars around here these days
I don’t think I realized how much I missed those sweet faces until they were around so much.
The reasons for the much-appreciated pause are many. Baseball season is casual and has no playoffs. Football season ended a bit prematurely last Saturday when the star player screwed up in school and wasn’t allowed to play in the playoff game. Painful lesson for all involved but impressive on the part of the parents who followed through and the coach who backed them up.
The rock climbing hiaitus was brought on by the immediate need for Noah to study for exams this week and the long-term need for him to adjust his schedule so he could get a handle on the demands of the 7th grade. So we’ve gone from his climbing four days a week (being gone 20 hours a week, including drive time up to the gym) to his climbing four days a week (gone 15 hours). Now he’s home more afternoons and evenings than he’s not. We have time, a luxury I never realized I’d have to give up so soon.
Noah climbing
Or do I have to?
Certainly competitive rock climbing isn’t the norm. Seasonal soccer, football, baseball, basketball through your local Y are all sports that seem to work with a family’s schedule. Rock climbing — like many of the select sports or activities like dance, gymastics, ice skating — is year-round. And intense. Noah is a member of Team Texas, the best rock climbing team in the nation. This isn’t 4-year-old T-ball anymore. Maybe we as parents were prepared to give up our kids in high school. But at age 12? I wasn’t ready. And sometimes I think Noah wasn’t either.
Every parent knows it’s a tricky balance. What I wonder if we as parents know is that we don’t have to yes to every opportunity that comes through our children’s lives — at least not on terms that don’t feel comfortable.
Seems counter-intuitive, at least to me. Rock climbing is Noah’s passion. It makes him feel alive, and there’s nothing he’d rather do. Sawyer loves nothing more than throwing a ball — any kind of ball, although he’s preferences of late are baseball and football — with his dad, brother, or a friend. What they learn about themselves and relationships by being on a team can’t be recreated at my dinner table or in front of the fire in our living room. I get that.
Sawyer ready to play at SMU stadium
And thus the interminable question: Where’s the balance?
I know what it’s not. It’s not Sawyer doing two sports and Noah being gone 20 hours a week. At least not all the time. Can we do it in spurts? During fall when baseball and football overlap? During the spring and summer, when rock climbing nationals are ahead of us? Maybe. I want nothing more than to make it work because that’s what my kids want to do.
So we’ll keep tweaking things. Maybe it’s just me, wanting to hold on to precious time I used to have in abundance. Maybe it’s society, expecting too much. Maybe it’s both.
While we figure it out, I’ll just enjoy these leisurely, happy moments of hot chocolate by the fire. And maybe take a cue from how much my kids do, too.
