The Boy and The Girl are old enough now to play sports, but still too young to drive. (Right now we’re in baseball and softball season, respectively. Many of the games start at 5:00. 5:00! Don’t people work?) The end-of-semester event crunch at the college is in full swing, with the rubber chicken circuit becoming so active that some nights are double-booked. TW is increasingly involved with local politics, attending school board and town council meetings on a frequent basis as she fights the good fight for the schools. Even The Dog is becoming higher-maintenance of late, with multiple recent vet visits for various issues.
TW keeps a family calendar on the wall of the kitchen. Several days of this week are so full that she has had to draw arrows in the margins. We’re one step away from footnotes.
Meanwhile, the college has been dealing with unbloggable drama. I’ve been rushing home from putting out political fires to get changed and take one kid or the other to practice, writing blog posts on a netbook in a folding chair along the first base line.
Stop the madness!
Back in the day, I dimly recall, parents used to say to kids when they got home, “go outside and play.” I remember doing that, and I remember just walking over to a friend’s house on the spur of the moment and asking if so-and-so could come out and play. This was considered normal behavior at the time.
Somewhere between the 70’s and now, that stopped. And when all the local kids are involved in organized stuff, there’s nobody to go out and play with. Even if you individually opt out of the sports-and-activities gamut, you can’t escape its effects.
Maddening. And obviously unsustainable.
Wise and worldly readers, in the absence of a personal assistant, have you found a way to stay sane when seasons collide?
