Another Week, Another Weekend

Well...we are now getting ready for our third full week of school. Time is flying. Lots of progress this week. There have been way fewer battles with my dear Max in the mornings...a lot less yelling, a lot less chaos. We MIGHT just survive the year yet! Lots of new challenges though coming up! For one...Max has decided he is going to run cross country. Now...this is an excellent choice for Max. Chris and I had long since decided that Max needs to be in a sport where he competes mainly against himself...he is NOT a real team player. He's a fast little guy and I happen to think the running will do wonders for him. So this is a good thing. Sort of. A bad thing as well. As far as I can gather (Max forgot to bring home the information sheet...imagine that!...Max forgetting something!) this team practices Monday, WEdnesday, Thursday AND Friday afternoons. Apparently Tuesdays and Saturdays are optional. That's all fine and good...except that it is about to be prime camping season...and if Friday practices are mandatory...that will be an unfortunate event, if you catch my drift. Also bad, in that it will mean I have to drive up to Coronado every day at 5:15 to retrieve him. Now...there is an activity bus he can ride home...but that would mean the poor kid leaves every morning at 7:30 and would not get home again until 6:30....long day. Can't do that. So I will go and fetch him home. Which should make dinner preparations rather interesting! I also learned (thanks to dear friend Vicky!)...that the girl who happens to have QUITE the interest in my Max, and whom I have LONG since deemed NOT wife material...just so happens to run cross country. Hmmmm. This should be interesting.

To further complicate life in the Roberts house, Ben has chosen to play an instrument. He has been very undecided as to what he wanted to play. We attended the band and orchestra meeting and got all the information...but Ben still did not know what he wanted to play. He kept going between the violin and the clarinet. I explained that one belonged to the band and one to the orchestra...which happen to practice on quite different days and at quite different times....so he had to narrow it down. So Saturday, we headed to the music store. He announced, by the way on Saturday morning, that he had made his decision. I asked him what it was and was expecting to hear either clarinet or violin come out of his mouth....however....he said he had decided on the FLUTE! Now...how special is that? I have to tell you that my protective mommy bells went off at that point because...let's face it. The flute is a girls instrument. Boys just don't play it. They just DON'T play it. The clarinet...okay...at least it is a cross over instrument to the saxophone...but the flute. Nope...girly all the way. So I was alarmed. But kept that to myself and went off to the music store to let him further explore his possibilities. The first thing Ben tried was the flute. The guy there kept telling him how totally cool it would be if he played the flute. I point blank asked him if it was because he would be the ONLY BOY playing one? He looked a bit sheepish and did admit that the flute had a reputation as being a girl's instrument. Anyway....by the time Ben got his hands in the right place on the flute...his poor neck was going to need to grow several inches in order for his mouth to reach the mouthpiece...so he gave up on his flute dreams. (Thank goodness)! Then he looked at the clarinet and declared that to be "the one". I said "okay...so you don't want to even see the violin then?" And he said..."Well...okay, as long as I'm here." He held the violin and then announced that that felt the best. I think he counted the strings and thought...Hmmmm, four strings....or....9 buttons on the clarinet...I'll take the strings! We'll see how this goes! Anyway. The violin selection defines him as an orchestra student and he starts practice on Tuesday afternoon, right after school. So I pick up Clara at 1:00 and then get to go right back at 1:50 to get Ben. Then he goes BACK to school at 8:10 the next morning....and I don't get Clara there until 8:40. So...long story short...I basically move back into my car this week. This seems to happen every year. I just live on the go! Fun, fun, fun. Thank goodness we don't have a sport going this season...NOR are we going to add one. Life is crazy enough as it is.

I still need to get myself to the gym in all of this. I have a new obsession with the BodyFlow class! Amazing! LOVE it! I have Tuesday and Thursday mornings blocked off for that right now (and Tuesday nights, and Saturday mornings!). Oh...I got word today that I am supposed to volunteer on Monday and Wednesday afternoons in Ben's class. I have no idea when I am supposed to help in Clara's class. AND...I would still LOVE to WORK in all of this at some point. So. Life is such fun these days. Busy as all get out. But moving faster than I could have imagined!

Remember those days when your kids were little and they got up each morning and watched Barney? Ate cheerios for breakfast....played outside for a while and were just FACSINATED just by even being outside? And then they had a little lunch (which they could barely stay awake through!...and took a good solid two hour nap...then played outside a little more, or read stories with you and ate dinner and then went to bed? If your little ones are still there...hold fast to those days. DO NOT rush them. Cherish them. Cherish the pace of the wee ones. Life is SO crazy and so nuts when they move on from that. Just cherish those days. If your baby takes a nap...enforce that nap and cling to it...schedule the whole world around it. That is my only advice. Cherish the days when you can just be home with your babies...your apple juice, your play doh..and your Barney! This mommy is longing for those days. How very sweet they were! Ah...but alas...on with life!