Time to relax

We told The Dude that this year we needed to cut back on his activities. He was playing soccer, baseball, basketball and doing boy scouts and playing the whistle and the fiddle and doing dance at his Irish school.

It was getting to be too much. While I love the talents he possesses and am so proud to see him engage in group activities, it was getting to the point he could not be himself.

We were missing family time together, meals together and most importantly - time for relaxing. It's hard enough with daddy being gone as much as he has to be and it was just really hard to do everything by myself.

I didn't want to end up eating and doing homework in the car every night on the way to run somewhere. I want to go back to being a mom, NOT a chauffeur. Plus I want The Dude to have time to relax. He was involved in something every night of the week and usually Saturdays and Sundays, too.

We gave him the choice of what he felt he could sacrifice and explained that with the increasing amount of homework, we need to put that as a priority.

We also tried to explain that time with family is very important. We don't all have to sit and stare at each other every evening, but that time together needs to be priority.

I was so proud of him for not even wincing about giving something up. He almost seemed relieved. I've finally gotten over feeling like a bad mom!

And all this time I was agonizing over asking him to let something go, he freely and willingly did! I'm really looking forward to more time with my little ones!

Plus, those damn drive through dinners were getting really old!!