Mid-week madness...

No!! I haven't fallen off the face of the earth...ha....Weekdays, especially Mondays, Tuesdays, and Wednesdays are pure madness for me. Work and Sophie's activity schedule pretty much do me in. On Mondays and Wednesdays it's violin while gymnastics falls on Tuesday afternoons. Each require an hour round trip car ride. I'm lucky to make it home by six or six thirty each of those days. Wednesday evenings are church and then singing lessons fall on Thursdays. Luckily, those are very close to home. This is actually the second round of children's activities for me...it doesn't seem too long ago that I was taking Stephanie to a whirlwind of events (gymnastics, softball, basketball, volleyball, etc).

The question is: why as parents do we schedule so much for our children? Why do we bother with the hassle of running here and there and having our cars serve as our homes-away-from home? The only answer I can come up with is that adults today are trying desperately to build childhoods that they never had. I can not recall one time when my parents actually hauled me around like I do for my children. In fact, I played school volleyball for three years and my parents never went to one of my games! It wasn't that they were bad parents; it's just that society has changed, and what we deem as "good parenting" has a different definition from previous generations. We actually feel better about ourselves if we can brag that our kids are "in gymnastics" or "playing travel ball." Are our kids better off than we were?  Are we creating better kids? Probably not...research suggests that over scheduling creates stress in both children and adults which is sadly an American epidemic. Something can definitely be said for having the time to enjoy your life and having the ability to relish having no schedule at all. As for my family, as long as they are having fun, I will continue to participate in this daily rat race; however, summers are a sacred event in our family. No schedules, no timers, and definitely no alarm clocks. This way we enjoy another thing I distinctly do not remember from my childhood...family vacation!

Sophie at her violin recital in December.

Steph "hanging out" on our Spring Break trip to Charleston.