Activities Galore

For the past 3 years, my girl has, like most kids her age, participated in 2 activities beyond the school day. She does gymnastics throughout the school year and has a break during the summer. Soccer is in the spring or fall. She has always loved gymnastics since she has one of her good friends in class with her. She’s not a huge fan of soccer and finally got through to Gollum this year with how much she disliked it. Big Papa played soccer in high school and enjoyed helping out the coaches on her team so I always wondered if Gollum chose soccer to appease him in some way. We never have any say or decision in the activities she does….we just come out and support my girl as much as we possibly can.

This year, for second grade, she has continued with her catholic after-school education (I’m not Catholic so I’m only slightly familiar with the terms…I believe the class is called CFF). That class is on Tuesday afternoons from 4:30 – 5:30. Since Tuesday is our night, I pick her up from the class on my way home from work.
My girl was already requesting more time with us because she didn’t get the whole afternoon to see us when she began this class in her first grade year. We were told by Gollum that she was taking this class on our night….not asked, told. Now Gollum has signed her up for swimming which is 3 nights a week practice plus Saturday’s for meets. She also signed her up for Choir which is Wednesday afternoons and a few Saturday’s in December and the Spring for concerts. Keep in mind that she also maintains gymnastics on Saturday mornings. I am tired just writing all that.

Swimming is Monday, Tuesday and Thursday night. So she literally is busy every single day of the week except Fridays. Oh, she has Sundays “off” too, can’t forget that. Normally she has to do choir and CFF homework on Sunday’s.

Big Papa and I are really concerned that this schedule is taking a toll on her. I know Tuesday nights take a bit of a toll on me already. The first night was awful. She wouldn’t go to bed because Gollum had told her that she could go to bed at 9:30. As nicely as we could, we reminded my girl that “Mommy doesn’t make the rules in our house and you are going to bed at 9.” Cue meltdown.

It’s gotten better but it is still tough because we want to spend time with her and not have to rush from place to place every time she’s with us. She and I get home at about 6:10 from work/CFF. We need to leave at 6:30 to get to swimming on time. Which leaves 20 minutes to get her fed, changed into her suit, gather up her towel and shampoo, etc and do 2 pages of homework with a stubborn 7 year old.

After swimming which is 7-8, I rush her into the showers and put on pajamas at the school. We get home about 8:40 and we give her 20 minutes to get a quick snack, brush her teeth, and play with the dogs. We don’t have time for anything else since her normal bedtime is 8 so 9 is pushing it. The only hope I have is that this swim season lasts until the end of January.

In the meantime, not only is it too much for her, we only have the time in the car to and from swimming to really spend with her so that makes our 2 weekends a month that much more packed. Gollum offered up one extra hour on our Sundays (we normally have her Fridays at 4:30 to Sundays at 12). Whoop-de-do. The weird thing was that Gollum told this to my girl and not us. From the sounds of it, she did this to appease my girl since she was sobbing when she found out swimming was Tuesdays nights and would give her even less time with us. And Gollum didn’t tell us this….her sister did. God forbid Gollum give up some of “her time” to make my girl happy.

Now Big Papa seems reluctant to fight for extra time every time we talk about it. My mom made a good point that Gollum cannot legally schedule any activities on our time and if she does, we don’t have to let my girl participate. Ugh, seems like an uphill battle any way you slice it. My fear is, if we don’t fight for more time with her and try to leave everything “civil and nice” with Gollum and let her walk all over us, that my girl will someday ask us why we didn’t fight to see her more. And we’ll have to tell her that it’s because of her overbearing, controlling mother. That and Big Papa’s fear of rocking the boat.