Crazy Calendar!

I'm struggling a bit with getting used to our new evening schedule. From Monday to Thursday every week there is some activity, usually two, on my calendar. This is the first year that I truly understand the meaning of the moniker "Mom's Taxi". Not that I would trade anything we have going on this year. If anything, I feel there are a few things we've neglected, like swimming lessons, but those are just going to have to wait a while, at least until we've settled into our routine. Last year I declared Tuesday "Crazy Day", and usually by the end of Tuesday evening I fell into bed, exhausted. This year I feel like every day is Tuesday.

It isn't really the driving that is the biggest challenge to me. Most of the activities aren't far away at all. Janelle's dance studio is less than one kilometre away. Our church is about two kilometres away. The home where we attend our community group is also about a three to five minute drive (depending on the traffic light between our house and theirs). And I usually don't mind ferrying the kids around. No, to me the issue is more the time we don't spend together at home. I am realizing that I really cherish our family dinners, the time that we connect around the table and recharge. I'm afraid those dinners will be at a premium this year. Chris struggles to get home from work before 6:00, and the kids' activities begin between 5:00 and 6:30. I'm going to have to be creative, but I'm determined to be able to find a way for us to have dinner together at least two of the four crazy days of our week.

Here's a quick run-down of our week:

Monday — Connor tried out for a competitive basketball team last week, and he made the team! We're so happy for him and we both think this will be a great experience for him. Connor has basketball practice 6:30 to 8:30 Monday nights, about a 15 minute drive from home. We'll probably alternate taking him, depending on Chris's work schedule. Chris and I have our Community Group, 8:00 to 9:30, not far from here, but for now we'll be taking turns since someone will be picking Connor up in the middle of that time.

Tuesday — Janelle's piano lesson, 5:00 to 5:30, about ten minutes away. I usually take her and Chris tries to pick her up since it is on his way home. That means I can probably manage to prepare us a family dinner that night. At 6:30 Janelle goes to Kids Night Out at Church, until 7:30. This is her busy night — homework has to get done right after school.

Wednesday — Busy last night because we had "Meet the Teacher Night" at 6:00, but usually Wednesday is just Connor's Jr. High Youth Group at the church, 7:00 to 9:00. That means we definitely get to have dinner together that night. Yay!

Thursday — Crazy night! Janelle has dance, just down the road, 5:00 - 6:00. Connor has basketball, about 15 minutes away, 6:30 - 8:00. Homework has to happen right after school, and who knows how we'll manage supper, but I'm sure we'll figure it out eventually. Today is our first day of the Thursday rush, so I'm planning to make homemade pizza (I'll try to remember to add the yeast to the dough that I forgot when I attempted this dinner on Monday!)

Weekends — For now our weekends are pretty easy. We are mostly focused on finishing the basement. The priority this weekend is to get to the half price paint sale that our colour consultant told us about when she came on Monday evening (yeah, somehow that got thrown into the schedule!) I may sign the kids up for a Saturday swimming lesson later in the year, but we'll see how things go before I do that. Connor starts weekend tournaments and exhibition games in November, with a tournament about once month. A couple of these will be in London, but others will be in Toronto, Niagara Falls, and Brantford, so we'll be travelling. Hopefully the basement will be finished by then!

I always swore I would have my kids involved in only one extra-curricular activity, aside from their church programs, and I'm still pretty convinced that is a good rule of thumb. Connor is only doing basketball and youth group, except for this month when he also has cross-country. He'll run a two kilometre race this afternoon, and then have a 90 minute basketball practice tonight. I'm glad it's him and not me! Janelle does have piano and dance, so I've strayed from my resolution a bit, but she so desperately wanted to try dance that we decided this year we'd make an exception. I'm not willing to let her quit piano, so it was really the only solution. I don't know how all those "Tiger Moms" do it, whose children are involved in and excelling at everything. I think this is as much as my kids and I can handle.

So I guess it's a good thing I'm not working right now. I'm far more able to cope with my evenings because my days are somewhat relaxed. The Lord knows how many balls I'm able to juggle. But I did apply for two more teaching jobs today. Still holding out hope...

My Calendar — The stickers help me remember things with just a glance. You can see how the craziness kind of snuck up on us in September!

The Best Kids

I know, I should not be letting a whole week go by without posting. My mother and certain others of you will be very unhappy with me. But come on, it's "busy December", and I already wrote last year about how crazy December is! This past weekend alone we had the Christmas office party, practice for the Christmas Sunday School concert, performance of the Sunday School concert, and our Home Group Christmas potluck. PLUS I got the FLU! I always seem to get sick in December. I hope it's not my Christmas tree that is making that happen, but I seriously doubt that an evergreen would cause body aches and chills. The doctor told me yesterday that it really is just a flu that I have to wait out. So I'm waiting. Today I was supposed to help supervise at the school Christmas concert practice at the high school, but the buses were taken off today because of another storm (yes, it is once again a winter wonderland in London - they finally plowed our street on Sunday night, so it had to start snowing again!), so there was no transportation to the high school, and therefore, no Christmas concert practice, so I'm free to stay home and wrap gifts in my jammies. Unfortunately, that probably means no Christmas concert tonight. My kids won't be pleased about that.

Speaking of my awesome kids, the one great thing that happened this weekend happened after Chris and I arrived home from his office party on Friday night. We had a new babysitter because the one we had previously used was unavailable. I was pretty impressed with her from the beginning. She was very friendly and talkative when I picked her up, and once we got to the house and I introduced her to the kids she really made an effort to engage them and make a connection. I had told her that most babysitters say my kids are pretty easy to keep, so I didn't expect she'd have any problems. By the time we got home I was feeling pretty miserable. We had a lovely dinner and casino night, and I had a chance to meet a lot of Chris's coworkers, but by 11:00 I knew that the flu was beginning to settle in and make itself at home. We walked in the door and said hello to the babysitter and she immediately said "Those are absolutely the best behaved kids I have ever babysat!" Wow! We both just swelled right up with pride, and for a couple of minutes I forgot to feel like death warmed over. I know this babysitter wants us to call her again, so she probably would give a positive report about the evening, but she really didn't have to gush quite so much. On the way home she talked about how much fun she had playing games with the kids, reading stories and singing with Janelle, and then watching TV with Connor. She sounded pretty sincere, so I choose to believe that she really meant what she said.

I have to agree with her. Although they are not always on their best behaviour with me, I do have a couple of amazing kids. I'm a pretty blessed mom!

Dancing the Afternoon Away...

When I dropped Janelle, her brother and her friends off at school this morning she had a big smile on her face. I'm sure the gently falling snow that she was catching on her tongue had something to do with it, but that wasn't the whole story. The main source of her excitement today is the first dance of the school year, being held for the grades K-3 classes this afternoon from 3:30 p.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Where we come from, dances don't start until middle school. And when I was growing up, even those were discouraged by responsible adults. I think I only went to one dance in Junior High, and maybe three in high school. Dances were a pretty taboo activity for good girls like me, and knowing some of the things that went on at those dances, it might have been for good reason. But as a parent of kids of the 21st century, I feel like I need to really consider my attitude toward school dances and my kids' attendance at them.

Maybe dances aren't such a big deal. I went to sock hops in Junior High at lunch hour every Friday, and I loved them! I was a good kid, and I wouldn't have been involved in any "taboo" activity no matter where I was. And my kids are really good kids, too. I'm not volunteering at the dance today, but I plan to be a pretty regular presence at any and all of the activities that my kids want to be involved in. And this is one activity that Janelle really wants to be involved in! Last year we were only here for one school dance, and I was really quite surprised when Janelle said she wanted to go. I don't know why I was surprised, though. That is just so "Janelle". When I arrived to pick her up, she was happy as could be, singing and dancing with her friends, and eating a bag of Cheesies. It could not have been more innocent fun, and maybe it is a bit of a utopian ideal, but I think that if a school dance can be an innocent affair in Grade 2, it can be in Grade 12. It's really all about how involved we are with our kids, isn't it?

So this afternoon Janelle will be going to her second school dance, from 3:30 to 5:00. The dance for the Grade 4 to 6 kids is from 5:00 to 7:00, and Connor hasn't decided whether or not he is going to go. Last year he decided to go at the last minute, and he had a great time. I'm pretty sure he'll be going this time, too, when he finds out how many of his friends will be there. He'll go, but if he's planning to actually dance, I might have to sneak in with a camera!

Awesome Lasagna

Finding new and interesting meals to feed my family that we all actually enjoy is always a challenge. Finding new and interesting meals that are also easy to have ready for our crazy Tuesday schedule is nearly impossible. My kids are both somewhat picky, as I think most kids are. Connor will eat a lot of things as long as he can cover them with ketchup, but won't touch fish and usually complains about anything with too much tomato sauce (a ketchup fiend, go figure). Janelle will most likely become a vegetarian someday, since she loves most veggies, but must be forced to eat the meat on her plate. Chris would say that I am picky, too, and I really can't deny it. He claims that he is extremely easy to please. I would counter that he is fairly easy to feed, meaning he will eat almost anything, but not always easy to impress.

We have our old faithfuls, as every family has. Stir-fry is a biggie for us, because both of my kids love it and so do Chris and I. I try to do the traditional meat-and-potatoes meal once a week, and spaghetti or some other form of pasta meal usually makes it onto the weekly list. Rice with meatball or wings is an easy crock pot meal that often makes an appearance on our dinner table. Tuesday nights (remember the Tuesday treadmill?) I usually resort to breadmaker pizza, or something I've dug out of the freezer. The last two weeks I've been determined to break that mold and come up with something different and unpredictable for Tuesdays. It has to be something that I can get onto the table quickly, and preferably something that I can transport easily to Chris to eat at Connor's basketball practice. Crock pot beef stew was a roaring success last week (except with Janelle the vegetarian, who begged for a peanut butter sandwich instead), and this week I made it my own challenge to come up with something else to surprise my family with. Something all four of us would love.

I used to make lasagna fairly often. I use a recipe that evolved from my mother's recipe, with a little tweaking here and there. Chris calls it my "awesome lasagna", because once early in our marriage I announced to our dinner guest that "my lasagna is awesome". I was actually refering to my mother's lasagna, since at that point I really hadn't claimed any of my cooking as my own yet. Everything I made was someone else's recipe, someone talented and experienced in the area of cooking, which I clearly was not. I have to say, that lasagna was pretty amazing, though. And now it's even better. But until yesterday, I don't think I had made it in years. I even had to play around with the recipe when I couldn't find a 19 oz can of tomatoes at the grocery story. Oh, well, 28 oz — more is always better, right? This is one meal that I'm not afraid to experiment with. I was convinced that no matter what I did, it would come out "awesome".

I had serious doubts as to whether on not my kids would accept this very foreign food to our dinner table. I'm pretty sure the last time I tried to serve it to them they both turned up their noses. This time I was determined to prove to them that "my lasagna is awesome". I was prepared for the whining, and had my "You only have to eat 5 bites and if you still hate it..." practiced and ready. When I first put it in the oven before I took Janelle to piano lessons, Connor made a quiet, skeptical comment: "You're making lasagna for supper?" When I came home from taking Janelle to her lesson, I walked into my glorious smelling house and said "Oh, that lasagna smells SOOOOOO GOOOOOOOOD!" Connor kind of hesitated before replying, "Yeah, Mom, it really does." Woohoo! I started to get my hopes up! When we arrived home after Janelle's piano lesson, the smell had changed a bit. I could tell that I had left it cooking too long. When I opened the oven door my heart sank. The cheese was brown, and the edges were nearly black. But I sucked back my disappointment and declared "Oh, you lucky kids are going to have the most delicious dinner!"

Connor actually smiled and made yummy noises when I set his plate on the table. He dug in with gusto. I guess he didn't care that it was slightly overdone. Janelle, on the other hand, said "Mommy, why did you make something I don't like for dinner?" I replied, "But how do you know you don't like it, Honey?" "Well, it sure doesn't look like something I like." It took some encouragement, but after the first frowny bite, she ate it pretty happily. When I sent her back to the table to finish her dinner (which I basically have to do every night, since my little scatterbrain inevitably finds something else she just has to do or check on in the middle of dinner), she ran back to the table and said "But Mommy, my plate is empty!" Hallelujah! Success!

When Chris came home from basketball practice I asked how he liked the lasagna and he gave me a half-hearted "Good". "Good?", I shot back at him. "Whattayamean, good?" "Well, that's no way to eat lasagna. Lukewarm, out of plastic, standing up in a gym." Okay, I had to give him that. Then I watched him pull the dish of lasagna out of the fridge and heat up two more pieces. I secretly smiled as he devoured them. I think I found another new Tuesday dinner.

Today I haven't thought about what we'll have for supper. But I know what I'm having for lunch. My lasagna is awesome!

Soccer Star

After seven summers of running back and forth to the soccer field, this is going to be my last summer as a soccer mom. Connor decided last year that he didn't want to play anymore, and we were supportive of his decision. We figured after 5 years he knew whether or not he loved the game. This year is clearly Janelle's last year.

She had a tournament on the weekend. While she loves to "be part of it", she doesn't actually want to "be part of it". She is happy to run onto the field when it is her turn and become an "on-field spectator", but she doesn't want to get anywhere near the action. My favourite is when she starts chatting with her invisible friends while she is standing out in the middle of the field. You can watch her hold long conversations with "someone" while her team is at the other end of the field battling for a goal. At one point on Saturday, after she came off for a shift, I had a chat with her about it. I said "Nellie, you know that your imaginary friends really aren't supposed to be on the field with you during the game". She replied "But Mom, they're in my head, so they have to go wherever I go. I can't just leave them behind!" Well, how can I argue with logic like that?

My girl is clearly not an athlete, much like her Mama, but she has a rich imagination and a definite flair for the dramatic. So soccer isn't her thing. I'm happy that she spent four summers "giving it a try". I'm proud of the fact that she will try pretty much anything. Yesterday we went to a brand new (to us) church, and when they called all the children to the front to sing a song for the congregation, Janelle headed right down to the front to join them. She didn't know the words or the actions, but she wanted to be there! Then she followed all the other kids, not knowing a single one, downstairs for children's church. I am amazed at her bravery. Maybe next year we'll find out what her "thing" is, whether it be dance or singing or drama or whatever. It's definitely something, and she's not going to shy away from finding it!

And here is a picture of the soccer star, taken this morning, after losing her second front tooth in the night. Cute or what?