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Recently we finished our annual swimming intensive at the beach cottage. Well, as intensive as it can be for a 7yr old, 5yr old and 3yr old...which in many cases is, I guess, intense.
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Lovingly lugging the 5 of us down to the beach each morning, 9am sharp, the mountainous Phil and Ted's double stroller's worth of beach stuff. I should say 6 of us. So, very glad our family friend Amy, came to help us out.
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Single I was, teaching teens, adults and little ones....those poor children dragging themselves to dance class after their long day of school. And yet they were so proud that Mon, was swimming, Tues, sports, Wed, piano, Thurs, dance, Fri, another club, Sat, dance again....you get the picture.
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{Elousia in her Bday Dress made from upcycled Vintage Drapes....following Maria, from the Sound of Music's example}
Well, I didn't want that picture for me. I wanted the picture with quality joyful family time, not time pressured, mommy-taxi-ing lifestyle. And I do apologize if that is your family - perhaps it works fine for you...I just wasn't up for that challenge. One week of swimming a year....at the lake, where it seems like a great adventure - Natural Learning...
I like that tradition. How do you manage the extras? Tell me, tell me!
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Love Elouisa's dress! I learned to swim in the lake and pool combined and loved it. I totally agree with you about being too busy with littles. I'm not sure what our solution will be yet, but it has been discussed a lot!
ReplyDeleteWe sound a lot like you. We keep extra activities to a minimum. VERY minimum. And, we tend to stick to activities that all or almost all the kids can do together so that not only is everyone having the activity on the same night, but we as a family can really jump into it together. For example, our church has a kids club that happens weekly during the school year. Logan and Felicity were old enough to go last year, and Kian will join them this year. That means that ever Wednesday, all 3 of them will go together. They love it! Zac and I look forward to that hour and a half each week that we'll have out with the new babe come October. And the 3 bigger kids will all be together learning about God and having fun. Then, since they all do it together, we can all talk about it together later. We've always done this club, but this year we also plan to add in 4H. Do you have 4H in Canada? Kian won't be old enough to do it, but the older 2 will. We are excited that it will teach them responsibility and give them goals to work towards. Again, they'll do it together. I think the meetings are every other week (depending on how involved you get with it) plus extra commitement around fair time. The draw to 4H for us is that there's a country chapter out in the sticks where we live. So it's just 5 min down the st! Such a luxery! So those are our extra activites. We are also a part of a homeschool group that we can participate with as much or as little as we want. During the school year they do one play day at the park a month, and one field trip a month. But we count that as school.
ReplyDeleteIn theory, we try to limit our extra activities, but it's all falling apart as they age and they want different things. I want them in music, so I lump the two lessons on the same day same time to limit the chaufaurring. Swimming lessons are done the same way and as soon as they are competent in the water they are free to quit lessons. It's only a safety thing for me. Two of the three will continue out of love for the water though. Church activities have always been done as a family, but now that I have junior high kids, their activities seem to involve less of the parents and our role becomes that of a driver. I don't like that, but they need their time of independence away from us. The biggest "other" activity is Girl Guides. They love it and they can do much of it together. We volunteer a lot to stay involved and with them.
ReplyDeleteWe do one thing per week, in the past it is usually 4H so that we have multiple choices for projects and the whole family can be involved. Then we are in a homeschool group that does things a few times a month. That is all I can handle! Once the kids are able to drive themselves, they can join however many activities they want. I can't keep up the atmosphere of my home if I'm not there or constantly falling behind.
ReplyDeleteOver the past few years it was mostly our oldest to get to to the extra activities, but we tried adding in a sports activity with the two three year old boys this year. It was tough taking a them all (7, 3, 3 & 1) out, in the wintery snow of Winnipeg, for a 45 minute gym-time really. Sadly the two 3yr olds didn't even care for it much. Our oldest ended up helping the instructor and I was on the baby to keep her out of the way of flying balls or charging children. I really like the idea of family things, but without the help of Daddy, 4 children is a bit much for me alone. I would like to get our children into an Awana program this year (I loved it as a child), swimming (all of them) and finally karate for the oldest (and maybe a younger one) who took a year break to get back into his passion for swimming. Because we too homeschool, these activities really don't feel as rushed, it's nice to get out and we can be open to more slots sometimes because we're going during off hours. I wouldn't change the homeschooling choice even though it can be tough at times. It really gives us a lot of freedom to feed into our children the importance of family (something missing in many homes today as it was in mine growing up). We really only have effective influence on their lives for such a short period of time to feed into them the values that will carry them through for the rest of their adult lives.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you on this one. Up until this point, we really haven't taken on much by way of regular activities. When they were quite little and I had no job, we did swimming lessons. My older guy, in particular, is adamant about NOT wanting to do classes, at least without his mama or dada. I have done some serious hand-wringing about this in the past, not wanting my kids to miss out and seeing so many other families whose children do so much. But even though we're not doing school or much by way of extra stuff, life still seems full and busy. Just feeding ourselves and staying somewhat clean is a big enough challenge! I don't know how school parents do it, but I'm glad I don't have to! I really like a slow pace of life, I guess. Hope to meet up sometime soon and meet Izzy! :)
ReplyDeleteI totally hear you! I just had baby #3 on July 30th, started homeschooling again in August, and both the older boys have soccer nearly every day! We're on "soccer burnout" and aren't handling it well. We weren't cut out for all the extra stuff, either. I like your idea of swimming at the lake...too bad I couldn't do something simple for soccer like that. Anyways, I always enjoy your pictures. :)
ReplyDeleteoh those kids are so cute! it looks like so much fun!
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