SEASONS

It is always good to keep in mind the idea of seasons. It is good to remember this in the good times as well as the bad times, the productive times as well as the non-productive times. One trick that I have learned and always keep before me is not to feel guilty during a time of rest when I have more free time. A future of extreme busyness is probably on the horizon so if I suddenly find myself with a day or week without stress, I have learned to just go with it.  This has been a hard fought battle for me. For years whenever this sort of free time suddenly appeared guilt made me  look for a way to fill it. I did not have the foresight to see that it was a season with a reason.

I was the girl who after 12 weeks of morning sickness times 9 always forgot that I was not really the laziest person on the Earth.  9 times and a few more for late miscarriages, I slunk into the depression of feeling I was the most worthless couch-layer ever and then one day I would find myself cheerily cleaning the house and exercising with the kids. Oh, I get it! It was just the early pregnancy hormones. DUH!  I was NOT an entirely new breed of person born only to lay on the couch and teach spelling while sleeping. Sadly, this epiphany never hit me while I was propping my eyelids up with toothpicks and letting window candles burn through the couch because the little boys were jumping all over the place.

I am trying to be a little wiser these days because some seasons are more frustrating than others. This year Andrew is playing baseball for the local public high school. That means that every single afternoon of the weekdays I have to drive him to the school and pick him up. After the first few days, I thought, "This is ridiculous!" and then I realized that if I was going to do this for Andrew I was going to have to give in to this season of life and find a way to enjoy it. I am going to be in the car a lot for the next few months. I am a person who will starve to death before driving somewhere unnecessarily.  I imagine Hell is a place where you have to run errands all the time.  I preach and preach against this sort of thing becoming a regular part of homeschooling but here I am and I am determined to enjoy getting to know Andrew better!  All of a sudden I see that something far greater than being at home is going on. I am getting to be alone with Andrew and listen to audiobooks. I can even workout at Planet Fitness while I am waiting.

The other change that baseball season brings, because I have 3 who will be playing early spring baseball and Alex will be added in later, is that MT often gets pushed out of the schedule. I am trying to learn that on days when we have to be up the mountain to watch Christopher at Covenant or at Chatt. State to watch Benyamin's exciting freshman year of baseball, we don't have to have all of MT or nothing. This is very, very difficult for me. I am hoping that on those days which will be plentiful, I can grab a few minutes here and there to read out loud at least, even if I can't have a traditional MT. I have already done that twice this week with dentist appointments. We skipped MT but we came back later and read Treasure Island. I hope that by doing this at the very least our read aloud list will be healthy this year because it won't be long when the season of reading aloud to my own children will be gone and I want to go out with a bang!