The cool in the chaos

We live in chaos.  I don't deny it.  This is fact.  I can easily get frustrated by the chaos and the cost of it.  I feel frazzled almost all day long.  Sometimes working outside of my home is easier than being home.  I can lament the lack of time I get with my own friends or the time Andy and I don't get to go out on date nights or out with other couples or families or all of that.  


The schedule is undeniably insane. Two field hockey games a week, two football games a week, practice Monday through Thursday (if there isn't a game on any of those given days) for both football and field hockey.  We then have Wednesday tumbling, and I don't even want to go into how insane that is with tumbling at 5:00, football and field hockey pick up at 5:15 (and that is the only day that they get out at the same time), then back to tumbling for pick up.  There is Saturday soccer, and hand chimes on Mondays, and it goes on and on.  Almost every sport or activity comes with some sort of mandatory volunteering requirement (I know mandatory volunteering is an oxymoron) whether providing snacks or hours of service.  Anyway, the point is that our fall schedules are out of this world insane, and the laundry still gets done, and everybody still eats.  As for the rest of the housework, I have no comment other than to say that it would be nice for Andy to take a day off to rest instead of catch up every once in a while. I get by with help from my friends who transport my kids or just stay with them while I race to the pick up.


Just when I think something most stop, we must get off of one of these trains, I find the beauty in the chaos.  In our busy household, every child fights for attention.  Wyatt and Julia easily demand it. They still need help with homework.  I get my moments with my teenagers -in-the-van-driving-home-from-this-practice-or-that.  Did you slow down and read that? They talk, they reveal, and I soak it up.  I learn that my son gets the message his dad teaches when he says to stay pure, to save even his eyes for the bride that he will someday love, to never let her feel like she doesn't measure up to the latest super, skinny model.  I learn what Savannah thinks of her new teacher and that she is considering applying to a public school with rigid entrance requirements in our area for high school. Is this the same kid who said, "I refuse" when I told her that our adoption of Julia may mean that Savannah and Zach would have to leave their Christian school? Savannah was pretty firm about being at a school with chapel every week.  I learn about my kids and know that these years are fleeting, and maybe, just maybe, the cool in the chaos makes the chaos worth it.