What a beautiful day in the neighborhood! A great day for soccer, which is much of what we did today. Two of my four children have been invited to someone else's house for sleepovers! My husband is at a Master's party which I hope to sneak over to after I've made the big sleepover switcheroo.
We have a family rule, no more than one sleepover a week-end. It might sound crazy to some of you, but we live in a small town and sleepovers prevail. At any time on any week-end night, all my kid has to do is look out the window in any direction to see one of his or her friends playing which always leads to sleepover requests. I'm all for sleepovers, but it really wears them out (because of the lack of sleep in sleepover), so I think one a week-end is sufficient. But if often seems that all their friends pair up for that second night, and I feel like a real meanie. Just like the PG-13 movies. We just say no way. Not until you're 13. And no cell phone, when literally all my daughter's friends have one now. So I guess I'm going to have to give on something to lose the 'meanest mom in town' label. What do you guys think? Her birthday is in June, so I need your feedback.
Are you the 'meanest mom in town' on something? If so, let me know. (for selfish reasons, so I'll feel better and so might someone else who reads it) Or are you the mom who lets your kid do all those things and you think I'm ridiculous? I'd like to hear from you, too.
So back to soccer. I went to the soccer field today and my mind raced with things to do 'after soccer'. But I told myself to stop it, today is about soccer, nothing else, until it's over. And it really helped me enjoy it more. My husband enjoyed it more, too, I think because I wasn't constantly asking him about the day's details.
We're in the last nine weeks of school. I can hardly believe it. Soon I'll have two in middle school and two in elementary school. Please pray for me because August will bring a big transition for me, and I want to make it well. I need to reorganized the way our whole house works once everyone is in school. The play room will FINALLY become a guest room, and I'll have no more excuses for messy closets and not enough socks. But I want to be organized enough that my writing time will continue to be protected. I'll be asking for lots of support and suggestions on this topic!
Have a wonderful week-end. Be in the moment, and enjoy your family.
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3 comments:
With four kids, I think one sleepover a weekend is pretty generous! My kids don't have a lot of sleepovers, just because it doesn't come up that often, but even if it did, I think that one a weekend is pretty reasonable!
As far as movies, well....we aren't quite as consistant on that one. (Says the mom of the 13yo who watched your DVD of "Spinal Tap" this weekend! And it wasn't her first time.)
Hey, that was me, not anonymous. I tried to leave my blog URL as the website. Guess that didn't work.
Here's my very selfish way of handling it: my kids can stay over at anybody's house (well, almost anybody's house) for as long as they're still wanted, but no one other than my own family ever sleeps here. We just don't. I am not a morning person. My kids know this and love me anyway. Their friends and their friends' parents would probably not be so understanding or forgiving of this fundamental lack in my personality. My feeling is, what they never see, they'll never know.
I am not nearly as diligent about movies. In fact, I'm not diligent at all. You'd shudder, probably, if you knew what my kids have seen. But I'd rather have them see it here, with me, than hear about it or see it somewhere else. Here we can talk about it and we do. This works because my kids are exceptionally conservative for some reason that I don't understand and have had very little to do with (credit or blame, take your pick). Call me crazy, call me naive, but so far what they've viewed on our TV has only confirmed their own conservative views of how life should be. Of course, this could change. I'll let you know!
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