The Minivan Olympics

I've always marched to the beat of my own drummer, even with parenting. Maybe even especially with parenting. I do my own thing, and yeah, I get some weird looks, but it's been working for us. I've always been a more laid back person at heart, and I'd honed our lives to cater to that side of me. I watched my friends running their kids from activity to activity, and was always glad it wasn't me.

Wasn't being the key word here.

In the blink of an eye, I am now one of those haggard moms running their kids all over creation. Actually, compared to some other moms we still aren't doing that many things, but for us, it's a lot. It's been overwhelming for me, and I've had a hard time adjusting. I find myself focusing on Thursdays and Saturdays, our only days without any commitments. We have homeschool co-op (which I'll do a post on later, and our decision to join one), speech therapy twice a week, occupational therapy, ballet (once a week for Hannah, twice a week for Lindsay), church twice a week, working the farmer's market, and we'll be adding trumpet lessons for Ryan in there somewhere soon. I get tired just sitting here thinking about it and typing it all up. Don't forget once a month or so we drive all the way up to Virginia to visit the hubby.

I feel guilty, because we're only one month into this schedule, and I'm already exhausted and resenting it. Wednesday is our most hectic day, where we take Logan to speech with the girls already dressed for ballet, and we only have 15 minutes to get from there to ballet and get the girls' shoes changed and them into their classes. Then we have to rush home, change clothes, shovel dinner down and get to church. Each week I feel like a runner on the starting block waiting for that gun to go off.

I also feel kind of like a loser. Our schedule isn't nearly as hectic as some other families, and I still have trouble handling it. I also look at the other moms who have those more crazy schedules and wonder how they do it. They almost seem to thrive in it. Me? I'm not going to be earning any gold medals any time soon.