The Good Stuff

Sometimes it seems like we're just running all the time - taking the kids from one thing to the next, never getting the chance to take a breath... recently I've been a bit stressed about the commitment Roddie made to his travel baseball team, and really discouraged with both the parents and kids in my religious ed class. 

The baseball team had a travel tournament to Maryland this weekend, but Roddie also had his last two regular season hockey games of the year.  He only misses for hockey, and sometimes we do hard things schedule wise to make it work, but I just didn't anticipate how torn I'd feel in these few overlap weeks.  After breaking the news to him (he was disappointed, but moved on) I tried to let it go, but it was really bugging me... up until the very last minutes, really.  I was second guessing in my mind (not to Roddie).  As the weekend panned out, Roddie had probably the most fun he's had all year at the last couple of hockey games (as you know, there is a lot of fun in this kid's life!) and the team clicked and came together more than they had all season.  He's been talking non stop about their standings and opponents and how much he loves hockey, with only a brief comment about this weekend's 3 of 4 baseball games he will play (will miss one due to the hockey playoff game).  I'm so glad we went with our gut, and that Matt was patient but unwavering - it was clearly the right priority for Roddie.  It might be that this means he doesn't make the team next year - either for skills or committment reasons, and that will be OK - we need to make priority calls all the time and I do not regret this one.

Religious Ed is hard with 8th graders, which is one reason I did not sign up to teach!  But when Norah's teacher was on her own, and no other parent raised their hand even just to join her in the room, you could say I felt "called'!  We are supposed to be teaching them about the parts of the mass, but since most of them don't actually attend mass, it's a bit like teaching a kid to read who has never seen a book.  That is frustrating enough, but the parents rarely reply to requests for assistance or information - however minor, and the ones that don't do the "drive by drop off" would prefer to sit in the lobby than join the class when requested or engage in any way.  Then, I had several emails from parents accusing (yes, accusing!)  me of changing the schedule, when their kids allegedly couldn't find the class when we met in the church.  So again, this was weighing heavily on me all week, and I procrastinated about preparing my lesson almost as long as possible.  As it happens, the confirmation students at our church (just 1-2 years older than our class) had organized a prayer vigil for Ukraine during the second half of our class time.  We decided to bring the class to it, first as a shortcut to planning a full lesson, but then later I thought it might be pretty powerful for them to see others like them, joined in prayer.  It was a beautiful candlelight service, and our class had a front row seat :)  I don't know how much they got from it, but I do know they all sat up with their eyes open and saw what was happening.  I am hopeful that perhaps a small seed was planted, and at least they got a taste of what it's like to gather together in prayer.  I also managed to let go of the resentment I was feeling towards the parents after last week, and had a very pleasant exchange with one of the parents who waits in the lobby.

So feeling much lighter today a few things happened this afternoon that really made my day! 

• I've started a "couch to 5K" running program with Roddie.  We just finished our second run together, but he didn't complain about going and we had a great chat - he said "I like running a lot better with someone"  me too, buddy, me too!  I'd better enjoy it now, as I expect he'll be quite a bit faster than me by the time we're done in 7 weeks!  I'm also feeling thankful for a job that lets me go for a run at 3:00 with my boy.
• About 30 min later, I went out to the kitchen - Roddie was baking cookies, for a friend's birthday.  Norah was cleaning up the kitchen.  They were chatting amongst themselves and the place smelled like cookies.  What's not to like
• Back in my office, Norah came in to tell me about how she managed to solve some cafeteria drama, by negotiating a table swap to a larger table with another group of girls so that her gang could fit a few more people.
• I got a text from a group of hockey moms who all live in my neighborhood, making sure everyone was covered with rides.  Matt usually takes Roddie, since he coaches, but it's sure nice to know there is a backup!

Of course, life is not all roses all the time, and Matt and Roddie are gone to practice and I need to wrap up and take Norah shopping, again, and a certain set of visitors didn't work out like we had hoped, but I just feel so markedly lighter than yesterday, I wanted to write it down!  This one is for the blog.