Day 216

We are only in our second week of football for the 11-year old, and I already feel like my world has been turned upside down.

Practice five nights a week from 6-8. Which is fine and absolutely needed, but hectic as all hell.

I work Monday thru Friday. So that means I get up in the morning and rush to work so that I can get off a little early for football practice. Then I rush from work to get the 11-year old at summer camp. Rush home only to feed him an unhealthy dinner and change clothes, then rush back out to the football field.

Even after practice, it's rush home and shower, get ready for bed, pack lunches and find clean clothes for the next day.

Now find time to fit in a 1-2 hour workout, laundry, dishes, walking the dogs, etc and what do you get?

Microwaveable macaroni and cheese for dinner. That's what you get.

My son asked me today why there was only a sandwich and pretzels in his lunch today. I reminded him that his father packed his lunch today, but the truth is we were out of water bottles, fruit, and cookies anyway so I can't really give him too much grief.

So, I added one more section of rushing to my evening. After dropping him off and walking him to the field, I rushed back to my car and drove to the grocery. I raced around the store, grabbing supplies for lunches and toilet paper. Because let's face it- that's the one thing you don't want to run out of at home and at this rate there was a good chance we were running low....

After practice, we rushed home. And as he took a shower, I started to put the groceries away. I know it may sound stupid, but putting away those groceries and knowing that I at least had a good healthy lunch for him the rest of the week decreased my stress level quite a bit. Plus I got to make a list when I went- that always makes me feel better...

Today's pic represents the chaos of kid-raising, and how bread and bananas, and knowing that you aren't going to run out of toilet paper, can calm the storm. Now I'm off to run the dishwasher so that we actually have clean dishes to eat from tomorrow. Hey- there's nothing wrong with rinsing out a cereal bowl and using it twice....