On Busyness not being Happiness (for us)

Addie and Aani have been in gymnastics/tumbling since August. Initially, they were going down the street to a little storefront for tumbling. It took 3 minutes to get there and was right after school, before dinner. In December, the owner decided to close it down, so I signed them up for gymnastics at the Lehi Legacy Center. It takes about 15 minutes to get there, and it's from 5:45-6:45 on Monday evenings. The girls have really seemed to like it, and I've been impressed with the program there. The classes are full to the max, and unless you already have a spot it's almost impossible register, so you have to take what you can get.

The downside, obviously, is that the timing of the class is horrible and it pretty much ruins Monday nights for dinner, FHE and other togetherness time. We'll either eat something really fast before we leave, or, the majority of the time, wait to have dinner until 7:00 when everyone is home. Then we have FHE after dinner, which is sometimes at 8:00- way too late.

Nils and I generally switch off taking them, but last night I was just not feeling like taking my turn. Nils got home from work and looked tired. All the kids were outside playing hide and seek in the cul-de-sac, having a grand old time, and we decided to ask the girls if they were okay skipping gymnastics. Both of them were more than fine with it. Aani said, "That's fine, I didn't want to go anyway."

As we were eating dinner, I asked the girls if they LOVED gymnastics. Aani said, "No." Addie held her thumb horizontally, to indicate she was neutral on the matter (classic Addie communication method). I asked them if they would be super sad if we decided not to do gymnastics anymore. "No!" in unison. I was pretty surprised. I really thought they liked it.

So this is my dilemma. We want our kids to have opportunities to develop talents, be involved in things, and feel like they can participate in activities outside the house with confidence. The trouble is that doing some of these things is a huge sacrifice to family time. I told the girls that if they LOVED gymnastics, we were more than happy to keep doing it. That goes for any activity for any of them. If they absolutely love it and identify with it, we will do what it takes to make it happen for them (within reason, obviously). But if they're doing it because everyone else in the neighborhood is doing it, or because it sounded like a good idea in the beginning or whatever, then I can't justify the sacrifice. Our weeks are jam packed with something every night. We don't have any evenings when we can just go or do whatever. Between homework, scouts, activity days, bishopric stuff, lessons, date night, school performances and other miscellaneous things thrown in there, we feel spread pretty darn thin.

How do you balance it? How do you find happiness in the crazy? We love just spending time at home with our kids, and we're not very happy when there isn't any time for it. I guess I would like to know if the kids not all being in different activities at any given time is going to be detrimental to their future success in life. Pretty sure they're not going to be professional athletes, dancers or musicians, but I do want them to have happy memories of their childhoods. I expect that those are going to be made both ways- at home and by doing things they love outside the home. Just not sure how to make the two work together.

Easter Wienerbration and April Fool's Poo

It's good to be a Vander Werff on certain occasions. One of those occasions is on Easter, when we have what has become the Annual Wiener Toss. After the kids finish with the candy hunt, Uncle Greg (my brother) throws hot dogs off his balcony at the kids below. They might be raw, they might be cooked- you never know what you're going to get. I don't know if there's anything funnier than watching the kids run after hot dogs being thrown at them from above. We can't decide what to call it: the Annual Throwing of the Meat, the Annual Wiener Toss, the Easter Wienerbration? They all sound so nice, I think we should just use them interchangeably.

See? Some cooked, most not.  It's a bucket o' surprises, I tell you!

Nothin' like an Easter basket full of candy and raw wieners! Look at that happy kid!

On April Fool's Day, the day after the Annual Wiener Toss, I had devised a brilliant April Fool's joke to play on the kids. Since we got a puppy, we have had the pleasure of finding poo in random places in the house. It's gross and I hate it, and I have been tempted to kill the dog, or worse, give it away to someone at Walmart. Anyhoo, it's gotten better, but it did provide a platform for my April Fool's joke.

We had a movie night with our neighbors and I baked some brownies. During the movie, I rolled up a brownie into a few little pieces, and they looked exactly like dog poo. I put the brownie poo in the next room, and a few minutes later "discovered" it, and started yelling at everyone that I was going to kill the dog and so on. Everyone came into the room, and Nils asked, "whose turn is it to clean up poo?" The kids all insisted that it was none of their turns, so I said, "Fine, I'll clean it up." I bent down and picked up the brownie poo with my bare hands and slowly put it in my mouth. The grown-up neighbors knew about it, and Nils was in on it, but all the kids were totally fooled.

It may have been one of the greatest moments of my life, watching all those children with their jaws on the floor, thinking that their mother/crazy neighbor lady was eating dog poo. I said, "Hmm, not bad!" Then Nils picked up a couple pieces and ate them. It was great.

Ava asked me for the next two days why I ate poo. Poor, confused girl. Best April Fool's joke ever.