Last week I finally pulled my head out of my ass and realized that I need to start saying no to some stuff.
That trying to do everything isn’t making me (or anyone in my family) happy.
And it’s not setting a healthy example for my kids.
I fell right into the not saying no madness this weekend.
Number 3 had a swim meet yesterday (Saturday) that I also had to coach.
We had to leave the house a little before 6 a.m. and we got home around 2 pm.
Today (Sunday) we had the same thing. Swim meet at the crack of dawn.
But then Number 3 also had a baseball game at 1 pm.
And then another one at 5:00.
My husband was working today, so he couldn’t help out.
I was trying to figure out how I was going to get Number 3 out of the meet early so he could make the 45 minute drive back home to get back to his baseball game at 1:00, because I had to stay until the end of the meet.
I was going to get him up to the meet, have him swim two events, scratch him out of the third and leave the meet early, and have my parents drive 45 minutes to get him and then 45 minutes back to the game.
And then yesterday I got pulled over by a cop on the way to the meet (and that’s a whole different blog post) but as I was sitting there on the side of the road getting a ticket from a cop at 6:15 on a Saturday morning, a light bulb went off in my head.
What the fuck are you doing?
If this isn’t a sign to SLOW THE HELL DOWN, I don’t know what is.
Saying no to things is not easy when you are used to automatically saying yes. When instead of limiting activities and establishing some boundaries, you just shove more and more shit into your day until you are like all those animals in Jan Brett’s The Mitten, and you keep seeing how far you can stretch things until everything inevitably just comes flying out.
So I thought I’d share my best NO of the week with you.
As I was sitting on the side of the road waiting for the cop to issue me my ticket, it occurred to me.
Why the heck is Number 3 going to this swim meet tomorrow?
He was going to have to get up at 5:30 for a meet that really wasn’t that big of a deal, and he would be exhausted for his baseball games. Especially by the time he got to the 5:00 game.
Forget the fact that I was going to ask my parents to spend two hours driving him all over Connecticut.
Just say no.
So my best NO moment of the week was when I acknowledged the unnecessary insanity of the weekend, and I made the executive decision to pull Number 3 from the swim meet altogether.
It is especially hard for me to say no to sporting events.
I’m not sure why. That’s another blog post too, I suppose.
But as a result, it is also hard for the kids to say no to sports related activities.
At first Number 3 was a little bit disappointed because he really wanted to swim.
But then when he thought about the fact that he would be able to sleep in, that helped to change his mind.
It was a healthier decision for him.
He went to his baseball games relatively rested, he pitched really well, and his team won both games.
I’m not so sure the outcome would have been the same had he gotten up before dawn to go to that swim meet.
He’s learning.
And slowly but surely,
so am I.
Good for you for stepping back from something. As the co-head of the family, you have to make the ‘executive’ decisions, and your kids need to know that they can count on you to make them, even when they might be unpopular at the time. Ya done good!