Posts Tagged ‘parenting’
LISA’S MONTHLY RANT: Happy Chaos Can Make Me Crazy!
I only have myself to blame… After all, I’m the parent, right. I should be the one who’s in control of the family schedule. And I hope you won’t think I’m shallow that I’m ranting about what I normally call the “happy chaos” that fills my life. However, sometimes the frenetic pace of making sure everyone is where they are supposed to be exhausts me. (Not to mention that I carry anxiety over missing an event, practice, or bringing the wrong boy to the right field at the wrong time – or other such mix-up).
If the kids’ team coaches and managers could give me schedule at the beginning of each season for practices and games, life would be easy. I could set up car pools with ease, schedule other family time and events around those activities.
But, for some reason, many of the extracurricular activities my children chose are managed by the scattershot approach. Little League baseball, Rec-league lacrosse, and even High School Baseball coaches seem to schedule practices on an ad hoc basis, making it next to impossible to arrange carpools, plan a week’s activities in advance, or know whether my child is available to attend a birthday party two weeks away.
The notion that the life of the “soccer Mom” (translated to include Dad’s, grandparents, or anyone who carts kids around to activities including but not limited to soccer) is a breeze is pure and utter crap. Any adult who acts as activities director for a child or children is likely to come away from the experience with skills to rival any Five Star General in charge of military logistics.
I understand that fields and practice space are at a premium, and sometimes weather gets in the way. However, for the life of me, I cannot figure out why these sports leagues cannot set a schedule in advance. Why must the coaches text or email the time and place of the next practice on a weekly or even daily basis. For goodness sake! Even if they just looked at last year’s schedule and modeled a new one after it. This would make the activities so much more family-friendly. (I’m begging my readers not to volunteer me for the job of making said-schedule. I do appreciate the volunteers who take on this task, I just wish they did it differently).
My kids love these activities and love to stay busy. Every time I mention how we are over-scheduled, the reaction from my boys is, “No, Mom! We like it!” They don’t seem to mind that they run from All County Chorus to a baseball practice, or from band or play practice to Lacrosse, from Religious school directly to a tennis lesson.
They have come to understand that if three boys with two parents wish to participate in all of these different activities, that sometimes a Mom or Dad will not be in the stands cheering them on – because instead, we’ll be with the other brothers.
I’m ranting, I know. But that’s all part of this monthly feature. Chime in! Fellow time-strapped parents unite!
Remind me that in the not-too-distant future, when my kids are in college, I won’t know what to do when I’m managing only my own activities and they’re in charge of their own. In the meantime, I’d love some tips for managing and improving my attitude over happy chaos.
Best to you,
Lisa Lipkind Leibow
Author of Smart Women’s Fiction
www.LLLeibow.com
Family Bucket List Series.Vol.1. Issue 3
After breakfast, we hit the road – that is, after a short errand of picking up a Styrofoam cooler, some ice, and a case of water. The kids were intrigued by the giant cacti dotting the landscape in some spots and thickly settled, like forests of saguaros in others. We stopped to see Montezuma’s Castle (another misnamed ruin, since the Aztecs had nothing to do with building this Pueblo village thought to be a thriving community between 1100 and 1450 A.D.)
Hubby liked the drive on Route 17 as we continued North – speed limit 75 was a first for him. We arrived at the Maswik Lodge in Grand Canyon National Park and walked a short way down Bright Angel Trail, where the mules walk and then climbed back up and caught the Hermit Road Suttle to explore a little more. The boys reacted with anticipated awe.
Thing 1 immediately wanted to know the dimensions of the vast canyon. After hearing 270-something miles long, none of us could wrap our heads around it.
We ate a small snack, a short rest in the room, dinner at the Lodge, and then took a shuttle to Arena, where we walked a paved path to the rim trail and walked along the rim trail to watch the sunset. We’re back in our room and ready to get a good night’s sleep before tomorrow. I will dream of the vivid hues that filled the sky and the way the white shelves of rock turned to burgundy layer by layer as the sun set. Phenomenal!
Family Bucket List Series.Vol. 1. Issue 2
Night 1:
Scottsdale:
Our flight was delayed about 1 ½ hours but we made it to Phoenix and saw my aunt, said good-bye to Noah and rented our car. Hubby upgraded to an Esplanade and we juggled our luggage, trying to figure out the best way to fit it in and still have room to sit.
After a half-hour drive from the airport, we pulled up to the Fairmont Scottsdale –beautiful resort. Our suite is huge!
We swam in the pool from 5-7 pm (got a snack at 5 o’clock of tortilla chips, salsa, fruit smoothies, since we hadn’t eaten lunch. We ate dinner at the resort at LV Bistro. Organic fare, dinner was delicious! Fresh salad with heirloom tomatoes and radishes, beets, cucumbers. Salmon with haricot vert and mussels. Oldest son had hanger steak. Thing 1 and Thing 2 both ate chicken tenders. Hubby enjoyed his scallops and shrimp.
We returned to the pool for an hour after dinner. Now we’re trying to stay up a little longer to adjust to the time change. Phoenix/Scottsdale was 116 Farenheit when we arrived today. But as they say, dry heat is easier to take.
Hubby and I have decided to lay off the wine and cocktails this week to stay as hydrated as possible while hiking in the desert and at higher elevations.
As for being with my boys tonight after they were away at camp for three weeks—I loved it! Hearig all of their fantastic tales of color wars, dippies, the new campers from Spain and France, the Apache relay race, freeze games at mealtime, loomster cocntests, and more. I’m thrilled they have these fond camp memories.
I’m lucky my children like one another. So far this first bucket list trip is a hit and we haven’t even started yet!
Family Bucket List Series. Vol 1.Issue 1
Day 1
This is the beginning of my travel log for a dream family vacation to some of our nation’s national parks. As I write, I’m sitting at the gate, awaiting a flight from BWI to Phoenix, Arizona. With me are my husband, three sons, and my little cousin, Noah.
The kids just finished their annual summer camp at Camp Tall timbers and Noah will meet his mother in Phoenix. Once we complete the cousin-hand-off, the Leibow family’s first bucket-list trip will officially be underway.
The idea for this trip grew out of a family movie-watching experience. We saw the movie The Bucket List, starring Morgan Freeman and Jack Nicholson. In the film, the two main characters, being treated for terminal illnesses, decided to carry out every adventure on their bucket list before it’s too late.
Luckily, my entire family is happy and healthy. But we do have limited time. My oldest is entering high school in the fall. We decided that since we only have five more years with us all living under one roof that we would each make our own bucket list of the places we would like to travel together. Then we compared our lists and came up with our family bucket list.
This first bucket list trip is a trip to the Grand Canyon and more. Here’s the plan: Fly to Phoenix, spend one night in Scottsdale. Drive from Scottsdale to the South Rim of the Grand Canyon, stopping a Montezuma’s Castle along the way. After a night and a full day at the Grand Canyon, we’ll head to Lake Powell for two nights. Then it’s Bryce, Zion, and then off to Vegas.
I insisted that seeing the natural wonders of the world will exceed any Disney “Fake” place.
My oldest responded, “Mom, we’ll love the real stuff but I really like the face places. I’m psyched for Vegas!”
The logistics for planning for this trip for a family of five might just be the most complicated trip I have ever planned. We pieced it together on our own instead of joining an organized tour. What I ended up doing, though, was to borrow an itinerary from a tour company and mimic their route and how many nights they stayed in each place. I figured they had done this a million times and know how long to spend in each place and where were the good stopping points along the way.
Since we plan to haul our own gear from place to place and stay in a different location practically every night, packing bags worried me, too. But I came up with a great system. I bought enough of the jumbo-sized Ziploc bags for each person to have one per lodging location. I packed what each of us needed for that night in the bag, and tossed them into a suitcase for that particular place. That way, we have one suitcase per location instead of one suitcase per person. I ended up packing one additional bag with toiletries, extra t-shirts, a raincoat, etc. that we might need anywhere. That means that we only have to carry two bags. This will save us a lot of lugging in and out, as we’ll avoid dragging five bags in and out of each hotel or lodge.
FATHER’S DAY: Hoping It’s the Thought That Counts.
Hoping it’s the thought that counts…
I detoured all of the way around (from 7th Street around to Independence, all the way back to 21st Street). We made it to the theater five minutes after curtain. We discovered that we could not be seated until intermission, and opted to leave, instead. What a wasted day! Ugh!
Judging My Book By Its Cover
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The past two weeks have been filled with working with my line editor and my cover artist. The manuscript is almost ready to be formatted and taken out of my hands. This will be a relief, because I think there’s something wrong with me — I could keep tinkering with the text forever.
As for the cover for Double Out and Back, I’m thrilled with it. I hope you think it looks great, too! It was exciting to have some input on its look. Most authors I’ve heard speak of their book covers have said they had no say on the matter. I guess it’s one of the “perks” of working with a small press.
Thanks for sharing this journey with me.
THE NEW MOTHER’S DAY
