Eating my Words

I learned a long time ago to never say "I will never (fill in the blank) with my kids"  Every time I do that, sure enough I find myself doing exactly what I said I would never do.  Particularly when I am being judgmental about other moms and what they are doing with their kids.  Yikes, that is hard to say about myself, but nonetheless true.

Case in point.  Last summer Owen begged me to let him try out for year round swim team.  I was resisting because I have always said "I will never have my kids play 2 sports at once.  That is too much."  I finally relented because frankly this kid doesn't give in and second the year round swim team is a bit competitive and I didn't really think he would make it on the team.  How's that for confidence in your kid?

Well, sure enough he made it on the team and that left me in a pickle.  If I agreed to let him swim and play soccer at the same time, he would have either a swim or soccer practice every day after school.  I didn't like that one bit and I knew it would go against my adamant "know it all" statement mentioned above.  After going back and forth about it and talking with Scott, we finally decided to go ahead and give it a try for the fall and to see how it goes.

We are in February now and still doing it, so I guess it working, right?  Sure, I guess so.  I said "no" to indoor soccer for him this winter in order to give him a break from that sport for a few months.  Even with that break, we had decided at the end of December to stop swim team. But once the end of December came, Owen changed his mind and decided he didn't want to quit, because he liked swimming too much.

Yes, he will complain about going to swimming practice once in awhile, but the minute I tell him that we will just pull him out, he shuts right up.  Although I can't say absolutely that this is the best decision, I can say that for Owen it seems to be working.  He's got the energy and competitiveness for daily physical exercise and as a bonus the pool water does wonders for his eczema.   If I tried this schedule with any of my other kids, it would be an absolute nightmare and a terrible decision.

So here's the rule.  Never say never.  And we will keep plugging along and hope for the best.