Mondays and Wednesdays are insane for the Zoot household. They are soccer days and they are EVIL and make us all GRUMPY because it is nothing but running and no time to even EAT, much less sit and be lazy like we all like to do. Today? MrZ goes straight from work and picks up LilZ at daycare and takes him home where HE gets ready for the gym and LilZ gets dressed for practice. MrZ then drops LilZ off at practice and heads to the gym. I stop by the fields on the way home from work (sweaty and NASTY) and pick LilZ (also sweaty and NASTY) up from practice, and we are all home, starving to death, by about 7pm. So usually, we treat ourselves to dinner on the way home from soccer practic. Monday? It was BBQ and catfish. Yum.
But it always makes me wonder, how in the HELL do people with SEVERAL kids in SEVERAL different sports do it? I mean, we can BARELY do it with one kid and one sport. Are those families given extra time in a day? Do they depend on the “my friend can take me and pick me up” avenue? Are they really pawns of SATAN and therefore have manipulations of time I don’t have? I think it’s the latter.
And don’t ask me if I get any housework done, because I don’t. I mean, the necessities are done: Laundry and dishes are clean. But, floors mopped? Hell no. Baseboards dusted? You’re joking, right? And don’t even ask how our progress in the nursery is going.
I’m thinking that organized sports seasons are actually evil periods of time where the masters of the universe are testing the limits of parents over the world. “How much can we push them until they lose theire freakin’ minds?” When things really become tragic? Is when two seasons OVERLAP. For TWO kids in the family. Those are dark times. I’m not looking forward to those days. That’s for sure.
Things even out in the end…because as soon as the oldest can drive…they get to take everyone and you get free time. What, only 6 more years for you?
For years I was a soccer mom with 2 kids. There were some days that were just plain wild. Some Saturdays I spent alllll day at the soccer fields. There were times that just about every night of the week there was soccer between the two of them. Now that they are older….I sorta miss the soccer fun. Then I really stop and think back and I get over it real quick. LOL
I spent a week with my aunt and her THREE boys last summer. The oldest was playing in on a big time baseball team that was three games away from the Little League World Series. The middle child was starting up soccer for the fall season and the youngest wanted to learn how to play electric guitar.
I spent the whole time thanking my sweet lord that they weren’t actually my kids and it wasn’t actually my life. But to answer your question, yeah, there was a lot of “Hey if you pick up my kid from soccer, I’ll take your kid to baseball.”
Oh, and a lot of speeding through the suburbs of California in a minivan.
We just borrow Harry and Hermione’s “Time-turner” :::snicker::: LMAO!!
Seriously thou, when you have many kids (I have 4) all in different activities and sports, or points in life (meaning drew the adorable baby) You do a lot of juggling. And sometimes for me it does include making kid swaps and deal with other parents in the same activities and sports.
My parents were lucky and none of us were athletic (I injured myself jogging and ended up in a cast. Jogging! Totally non-dangerous sport! Am a complete klutz!) so they didn’t have to deal with this. I probably won’t be so lucky because my husband is sounding like he will be slightly nazi-ish with our children and force them to play organized sports. We’ll just see about that.
It’s not just sports, trust me. Mine are still too young for organized sports and it’s a struggle just to coordinate the various daycare/school pickups sometimes. Our delicate house of cards schedule gets wrecked if one of us has to be out of town or anything. For example: Hubby had to work late, babysitter and school are on two different routes home, so I couldn’t leave work on time and still go to babysitter and still be at either school before aftercare closed for the evening. So the babysitter met me in a shopping center parking lot near my office, we moved the baby from her car to mine and drove to my daughter’s elementary school to get her, then to my son’s preschool to get him, and I hauled all three home.
this has nothing to do with your entry but I just wanted to let you know I played scrabble last night and picked up FOUR “o”s consecutively out of the bag and put them on my letter holder thingy and suddenly thought of zOOt! (despite the fact I didn’t have the z or t)
Well let me tell you as a totally insane mother of 4 very active children it only get more insane!!!! I often am crazy, i have a 12 year old that insists on playing every sport ever invented, and to fallow right behind is his 10 yr old brother then I have a daughter that I thought would be a dance finatic but I am cursed cause not only dose she dance but she also wants to do sports, lastly there is my four year old who has anounced he is old enough to play soccer too. Oh and that is just the sports, add music lessons, and swim lessons then it get exciting, because i wasnt insane enough with that, and working full time, I decided to go back to school full time. Yes I know I am insane but I think I already stated that at the begining. How I do it, I do lean on a friends mom, and they lean on us too, it somtimes evens out and sometimes dosnt, but who really counts. The nice thing is bedtime cause after all the activty they are exhausted, and fall right off to sleep. Then it is time for alone time for me and hubby, ha ha we are right behind the kids heading for dream land.
Annette
Haha, I never get hardly any housewrok done either. I tend to do it all when my lil’ one has gone to bed 🙂
I found your blog through Rockstar Mommy’s. I am glad I found it because it’s a fantastic read 🙂
I am wondering the same thing. I have three boys. The oldest plays drums and wants to play football this season. The twins want to play baseball and one wants to take guitar. I am trying to work the 1/2 hour guitar lesson in the middle of the drum lesson so i can drop of fbig kid, take guitar player and wait, then pick up big kid. (Twin #2 rides along for all this and does homework sometime during??)
As someone above said, it’s all finely calibrated, and a broken traffic light, a late carpool, a sick child can all wreak havoc with the day. (I’m so tired I didn’t even mention karate and Wed church).
Anne, tired queen http://www.tinykingdom.typepad.com
I have to admit that I am torn between my son being a Sports Fanatic or a Car Nut. Sports Fanatic would be nice, but I would hate to have all those Saturdays sucked up sitting on soccer fields. I dread a Car Nut because well, I went to high school in a small town and many Car Nuts turned into Grease Monkeys.
What I would really like is a Geeky Bookworm, but isn’t that banishing my son to a lifetime of virginity?
HA I have you all beat…I am INSANE and I am never up on my cleanining of my house and I have NO kids. You all rock for being great moms and making it all happen for your kids!
Zoot I think you have to stop using the phrase “daycare” for LilZ he is 11 or 12 now right? After school program sounds better or aftrer school care. Just an FYI cause you are so cool I would not want this to mar you image *smooch*
I don’t know how they do it, but won’t LilZ be driving in 6 years? VOILA!
haha reminds me of when 4 of my kids where in sports. All 4 played in the same town but at different locations based on their age. Softball, baseball, soccer, and football, every season was the same. One child dropped off at this school then the next at another school, then one at a field and the 4th usually would be in the same vicinity of one of the other 3. Oh my God! Talk about a nightmare! Many, Many times 2 or 3 of them would need to be at 3 different places at the same time. You drop the oldest off a little early, then next age in line gets dropped off next, and so on. Now, I’m one of those mom’s who has to see ALL of my kids play! So imagine the fun I had…10 min. at this game (and practices were the same) 15 min at this game, jump in the car and hurry to the next child. Man! during softball and baseball I did try to plan it all so I would be at whatever field that I needed to be according to which child MAY be up next to bat, pitch, whatever. Looking back (my dad always called me supermom) I wonder how I did it!
Four kids, numerous sports/practices for each one, plus swim lessons, plus the twins want to take figure skating lessons. My husband and I split up, and see each other before bed. We. have. no. life.
I’m going crazy now with 2 in school. I r un non stop all day it feels like. there isnt enough time in one day and they dont even do after school sports yet. I r un them all to school(the entire neighborhood) come home clean up some, work on the pc some, then go pick up bug at 11 from school. Come home fix dinner for hubby who has to leave for work at 2:30 or 3 pm. Get him squared away. Then Diva comes home from school at 4(lady down the road picks her up). Then its homework and any errands we have to run. And I have to get them bathed, fed and into bed by 7:30 so i can get them up at 6:30 the next morning to do it all over again. If they arent in bed by 7:30 they dont get up. And yesterday i threw a doctors appt in there somewhere and set the whole day off wrong. There just isnt enough time to get it all done by 7:30.. my house is a wreck. This new school schedule is driving me nuts. already!