The hardest part about having seven kids is making sure that each child, at each age gets the same experiences the other children got. Are the older kids stuck doing a baby activities all the time? Are the little kids getting to play enough Candyland? Do the middle ones get lost in the shuffle? I think about these kinds of things a lot. Lately I have discovered the couple hours I have of free time during Cate and Grace's piano lesson is a good time to give my three littlest ones my undivided attention. Last week it was exploring a park we'd never been to before, thereafter christened "The best park in the whole wide world!"
The morning reminded me of the five mornings a week, every week, I used to have with Cate, Grace and Gideon. The sky was the limit back then, because our days were empty and free. Some weeks ended up with visits to library story time on Tuesday and Thursday, and Barnes and Noble story time on Friday. Hour long walks, mornings at the swimming pool (when I took Cate as a toddler, entrance cost me just one dollar), visiting every park I could think of, power walking through the mall before it opened in the winter, when it was too cold to go outside. My life isn't much like that anymore. I actually can't remember the last time I purposely tried to exercise. Or even worried about it...
I've been enjoying being able to focus solely on my littlest ones on these piano mornings. We start with discussing what would be the funnest thing to do, and inevitably they decide that would be a park, though I may surprise them and sneak some swimming in one day, just us, no older kids. They would love that.
On the other end of the spectrum, I've realized that while life is easier for me when we stay pretty homebound and get normal bedtimes for the whole family, that the so called "teenagers" (long story, but the word is jokingly taboo in our home) in the house might like to do something more exciting with their evenings than simply concentrate on getting a good night's sleep. Of course eight hours of sleep at night is ideal, and of course, as you know, I love to get my day, and subsequently our family's day, going at the crack of dawn. But, a while back I decided to be flexible about the older kids' bedtimes. I told Cate and Grace they didn't have to go to bed at any set time, but I was still going to wake them at the same time each morning, even if they stayed up late the night before.
I'm surprised at how well this has worked. I had to stop and think about what it was like for me when I was a teen. Certainly, it was full of late nights and crazy sleep schedules, and occasionally sleeping in on the weekend to make up for it. But I had then, as Cate and Grace have now, a schedule with enough commitments in it make me consider if the youth group all nighter or the late night baby sitting job, was worth taking or not. I quickly figured out how un-fun it was to pay for hours of lost sleep the next day. And sometimes I decided that the lost sleep was worth it, and sometimes not. But, I survived growing up with the occasional night of three or four hours sleep. Hey, I still do. It may be easier on me to treat them like they are still little kids and stick them in bed at nine o'clock every night, but it can be fun to live a little.
Live a little. That's what I tell my kids often. Try something new, don't just stand on the sidelines and watch. I want my kids to experience life and fill it with memories. This mantra is what had Cate, Grace and Gideon playing softball with friends one afternoon in the middle of a huge downpour. They came home soaking wet and begging for hot chocolate and laughing their heads off. Yes, school work all day without a break may be more ideal for me as a teacher, but it is often the sudden change in schedule to randomly decide to paint a dresser, or hang a swing outside, or buy flowers to plant, that stays with them longer than the lesson they were reading.
Over the years, I have gone from being a very scatterbrained person who procrastinated and never got any work done, to realizing my kids were never going to learn to read if that was the way I approached school. Then I buckled down pretty hard on the kids and became more of a drill sergeant, ensuring we would learn our times tables and spend our free time reading and practicing instruments; and it is in the last couple of years that I've learned to recognize that there is a legitimate balance between the two that can be reached, for optimal learning, and enjoying life.
Life as a parent is amazing, isn't it? How is it possible that each day is better than the one before it, with new milestones reached, while at the same time utterly heartbreaking because the day before is never coming back? Soon, Jude, Truman, and Clementine's days with me at the park during piano lessons will be over. I wonder what they will be doing instead? Soon, my teens will be finished with school and lessons and my authority. I wonder what their lives will look like then? It's dizzying to even think about. In summary of all these scattered thoughts that I am thinking today, I will conclude with this simple but accurate thought: Life is such a gift.
