Overcommitted

A lot of people I know have a hard time saying "no."

I am not one of those people.

I knew going into this fall that our schedule would be busier than ever before. I thought I was prepared for it. I thought wrong.

Back in the old days, we never left the house after nap time or dinner, unless it was to do something fun like go to the park or make an ice cream run. Spur of the moment things that we were not required to do. And I liked it that way.

Now we have entered a new era. An era that I'm afraid will only cause our lives to be more and more spoken for. Rylan has soccer practice one night a week, games on Tuesdays, and games on Saturdays. And marital arts on Fridays.

I signed us up for Wednesday night Bible study because I can't go to Wednesday mornings anymore. I really wanted to be in it because they are doing Beth Moore's Daniel. It's from 6:30-8:00. It started tonight. We didn't go.

My "mom-tuition" spoke pretty strongly to me this afternoon. Seeing as how I do not see my children until I pick them up at 1:00 (I leave for work before they are awake), and then Presley takes a nap most of the afternoon, I just couldn't bring myself to drop her off again for another hour and a half this evening. And it's not just an hour and a half. It's "Here - hurry up and eat this dinner NOW! We don't have all night - EAT! We've got to go!!! Get in the bath - Now get your clothes back on. Speed it up! Get in the car!!!! We're late!!!"

And then we wouldn't get back home until 8:30 and now it's past bedtime.

No, I just didn't see us doing that now that the reality of the situation was upon us. I'll still get my workbook and try to do it on my own (meaning I'll finish it sometime by next summer), and I don't think God will mind one bit.

Oh, and I've already dropped the ball twice, no three times, on school preparation. Having Presley in two different classes is very confusing. She had "homework" due yesterday but I had in my head that it was for her Wednesday class. Then today she came home with the same "homework" for that class. So we have to do two of everything. And speaking of, when it's an All About Me page for a 2 year old and there's a blank face and it says to decorate it with materials you have on hand, what does that really mean? I can't seem to read between the lines. Does it mean, Mom, you draw the face and hair and get out all your craft supplies and do this thing up? Or does it mean give your toddler a crayon and let them go to town? I sort of went with both.

She was supposed to wear yellow for her class and I sent her in the only yellow outfit she has today. Cute little sundress with a yellow bow. Then I looked at the calendar this afternoon and saw that it was for tomorrow. Oops - we have no more yellow clothes. Crap.

I was 10 minutes late picking them up on Tuesday because if you can believe this I got lost on the way there. I tried going a different way from work and I made a wrong turn but didn't realize it until I had been driving for 20 minutes and ended up back where I started. Blond moment. I'm still not totally sure how that happened.

All in all things are good, we are adjusting well, but I'm just having to be more protective of our schedule. I also want to give myself props for leaving the house by 6:45am several days a week when I haven't been out of bed before 7am on most days in years. And even more props to my DH for getting the kids fed, dressed and off to school in one piece. I think we're going to make this crazy train work.

Oh yeah, one more thing I just remembered...On the way home from school today Rylan said, "Mommy, I wish you were in heaven. Then Daddy could take us to school everyday and never go to work." Out of the mouths of babes I tell you. So warm and fuzzy.