taking life back

I love baseball.  I really do.  If you've visited this blog for any length of time, this is not a news flash to you.  You may remember my mid-December giddiness over Cliff Lee returning to the Phillies...I'm sure you remember thinking, "This girl has flipped her lid.  Who cares about baseball...let alone in December??"

Well, don't worry, this post is just about the opposite.  Instead of thrilling to the thoughts of all things baseball-related down to the "peanuts and Cracker Jacks", I'm actually here to say I'm more than ready to bid a fond farewell to this season of sports.  It's not just the letdown of the Phour Aces

and the biggest Philly dream team ever...and let me say, there was mourning...and yelling and fuming...here on Friday night over our big, season ending loss (but that was all Todd)...what I'm really sick to death of is little league.

I love watching my kids play sports, I really do.  But our family had sort of set a one-sport limit so that we would not spend all our time "running" - an admirable, if not slightly unrealistic goal for a family with 4 children.  However, the problem we didn't foresee coming, until we seem to have already found ourselves entrenched in it, is that this one sport...which one would think would be confined to ONE season...has now turned into, left unchecked, a potentially year-round activity.   

Hold it.  *insert screeching sound here...*  Baseball is thoroughly enjoyable to me, when I can take turn attending the different boys' games, or watching them play as teammates (even better, when it happens every-other year), but we now have a third boy that is 'of age' for playing, and the other two split on separate teams.  Only two parents that drive.  You do the math.  Not to mention some boys who are getting a little over-dosed on the sport as well, and have to be cajoled a bit when it comes time to head out.  To me, playing sports should not involve cajoling.  If there is a need for it, then it's time to re-evaluate. 

And so...we are.  Thankfully, our current commitment to this particular 'round' of things is coming to an end, and Todd and I had a talk over the weekend about needing to address the amount of time our children (and in turn, we) spend on various activities, and how we pick and choose what things should have priority in our life.  The problem is...lots of things seem 'good'.  There is plenty of value that we see in our kids being involved in sports.  But my question is...at the expense of what other 'good' (or, even, 'better')things?  Should our kids have no involvement in any church or spiritually-related things (besides Sunday mornings) because we are too busy running to games every spare evening?  (That answer was painfully obvious, and one of our biggest things that we feel we need to address.) 

The weird thing is, in all this, how unwittingly we've ended up in this place.  We had always talked about not wanting to be the kind of family who ran their kids all the time to tons of activities.  And on one hand, we don't have tons of activities...just one activity that has managed to take tons of time!  And it happened almost without us realizing it.  But, since life is a journey (something I regularly remind myself of!) the good news is, we aren't 'stuck' in this pattern.  We can choose to change things.  We can choose to set priorities...and make adjustements...and be purposeful.  I will say...it doesn't come easily or naturally for us.  But then, most worthwhile things in life don't.

So here's a question...how do YOU keep life from driving you, instead of you purposefully directing your life?