Finding More Time in a Day

As my kids have gotten older, I have found that we have gotten more and more busy, and we have had less unstructured time each time. I am a firm believer in letting children play.  I spent many glorious hours throughout my childhood with unstructured time:  outside, inside, in the kitchen, reading, you name it, I did it.  I took music lessons.  I did very few team sports, and most of those were in high school.  I feel like I had a idyllic childhood.

Now, here I am, the mother of six children, wanting to give them a taste of what I had.  Not only do we live in a different time than when I grew up, but we live on a different continent!  Many of my formative years were spent here:

This was taken from our front yard in Garmisch, Germany.  That is the Zugspitze in the background, part of the Alps, and the tallest mountain in Germany.

I was outside all year long.  If I wasn't at school or skiing, I was outside playing in the woods, by the river or on the mountain.  I was allowed a lot of independence.  I didn't depend on others to entertain me, take me places, or teach me things.

I loved my life.

Fast forward 30 years.

I am now the mother of six children.  All but the youngest take music lessons.  Two are in a community orchestra.  Four are in soccer.  Four are in scouts.  All the older kids have church groups that meet regularly.  Several have responsibilities at church.  One teaches music lessons to several students.  They all have homework.  One is in competitive swimming.  Three are in community swimming.  One is in community theater.  Both adults have church callings.  I teach piano lessons.  I daycare several children.  I exercise regularly.  We have pets.  We participate in church singing groups.

We are going crazy.

Hayden graduated from high school in May.  We were working hard trying to keep up all the activities while preparing him for a mission, and having some family time.  Well, guess what?  There was no time for family time.  We were so busy trying to create super children, that we forgot about raising a family.  We had no time to do anything together.  Whenever children got left behind while mom and dad were driving other children around, or cheering at other children's events, they would sit at home and watch episode after episode of mindless shows, or play addicting games on the computer.  Sure, they each got their moment to shine, but what about our family's turn to shine?

In the most important job that we had ever been given, we were failing!

 

We decided to make some changes.  The kids were not all on board at first.  We told them that we would not be doing community orchestras or choirs this year.  We would not be doing team sports.  We would cut down on all of the activities that we felt were taking away more from our family than they were adding to an individual in our family.

We're a couple of months into it, and we couldn't be happier.  We are spending more time playing outside (in our backyard, not on a mountain, but it's good enough for us!), playing our musical instruments together, singing, reading, and just relaxing.  We have time to serve others.  We have time to eat together.  We have time to play together.

We are still busy!  We are still very involved in music and in church/scout activities.  We still have homework.  And we have plenty of chores!  But we have cut out enough that we don't feel like we're running all the time, and not getting anywhere.

Life couldn't be any better.

Unless we lived in the Alps.


***Family Pictures taken by Sara Trimble, http://simplytruephotography.weebly.com/