I'm just going to start out by telling you why I am the most awesome human being ever. So, today the boy and I dashed into Subway for a quick lunch before my 1:00 appointment with my crazy meds doctor. Or so I thought it would be quick. Unfortunately several tweens/teens from the local junior high had just descended upon Subway. Overall, they were super well-behaved and not annoying like some teenagers, but I was truly saddened by the following situation.
One boy was not in line with his friends. He told his friend that he didn't have any money with him, and asked the friend to please buy him a bottled water if the friend had any leftover money. About 5 minutes later (still in line), the friend-with-money told the friend-without-money, "Hey, look, I don't think I'll have any money to buy you anything, because I'm gonna get like a super-giant sandwich, a drink, chips, and a cookie." And I swear to you, the other kid had to walk outside because he didn't want his friend to see him crying. I thought this whole thing was super rotten on the part of the friend with money. So, when it finally became my turn to order, I made my sandwich a meal and got some chips, which I gave to the kid along with the water I bought. I told him I was on a diet and didn't want the chips.
Now, it's not like this is the charitable act of the century, I mean he was just a kid with a cool cell phone in a middle-class suburb who happened not to have any cash. And really, I'm a jerk for even bringing it up, like I deserve some accolades. I just want to get it in writing that I have some good dieting karma coming my way, and that I'd BETTER lose weight tomorrow at my Weight Watchers weigh-in. Because that's how you lose weight, by doing good deeds.
Okay, now that I've gotten that anecdote recounted, today I'd like to talk about the issue of being overscheduled versus underscheduled. This wasn't a problem when I was working, of course. But when I quit my job, everybody (including the afore-mentioned crazy meds doc) told me I would have to make sure my days were really structured. So I signed the boy up for Monday/Wednesday free play at the park district, and Tuesday music class. At the time, he was going to daycare Wednesdays after free play, as well as all day Thursday. Fridays I would try to take him to some fun outing like a children's museum or park. I liked the idea that I had something to get us out the door every single day.
But right off the bat, I hated that stupid free play. It was just hanging out in the basement of the park district with a bunch of people's hand-me-down toys. Why should I work to get us out the door when we have perfectly good toys at home, I wondered. This became especially true in the winter, when I would have to shovel 6 inches of snow off our driveway and battle the boy into his winter coat to go to the stupid free play.
And two days of daycare time ended up being too much. Between daycare and our classes, we were never able to schedule anything with friends who wanted to get together. And it turns out that a big part of a toddler's day is already scheduled by naps and meals anyway. So we cut back to one day a week of daycare, which I primarily use for errands and appointments, and occasionally to watch a movie or take a nap.
My gym visits ended up taking up a chunk of time, too. It takes me about an hour and a half to work out, get changed/shower, and drive the round-trip to the gym. In the toddler world, an hour and a half is a big chunk of the half-day known as Pre-Nap. (There is another part of the day known as Post-Nap, of course, but I seldom visit the gym during Post-Nap.)
You would think after 6 months or so of tweaking our schedule, that I would have gotten down to the perfect balance of activities. But the summer felt like an overscheduling disaster, albeit a fun one. The boy was going to a little camp that was only two 90-minute sessions a week, but which somehow took up the entire morning two days a week. He did swimming lessons one morning a week, I did aquacize twice a week, we still had our one daycare day, and we were in the summer reading club at the library. Sometimes on Sunday nights I would think about the upcoming week and feel as overwhelmed as I did when I was working. Though I would like to once again mention that being overwhelmed by driving your cute toddler to cute toddler activities is way better than being overwhelmed by correlating math textbooks to state standards.
Anyway, we lived through the overscheduling of June and July, and then all the toddler activities ended right before we took The Fabulous Trip. And now that we're back, we're in that lull between summer and fall, and there are no scheduled activities. And it's just like, there's nothing to do. I hate waking up in the morning and not knowing what the day holds for us. I mean, yes, I have a loose plan, but when you don't have anywhere you have to be, you can easily get sidetracked by household chores, petting the cat, etc.
So now I'm longing for some scheduled activities. There's just something about fall that makes you crave routine. So this morning, I went on the park district website and scheduled us up the wazoo. The boy will be returning to Music for Minors, the park district toddler music class that tires me out, but overall is a really great activity that requires very little effort/driving on my part. That's on Tuesdays. One Monday a month we'll be doing the nature class at the forest preserve, so the boy doesn't suffer from Nature Deficit Disorder. Wednesdays we plan to go to the new library story hour that's just for two-year-olds.
And that's just the boy. I signed myself up for ice skating lessons, which I'm really excited about. And as I mentioned in a previous post, I have some new classes at the gym I want to try.
So, let's hope that we achieve the right balance this fall. Lord knows I need to get myself on a very disciplined schedule before the winter hits.
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