The Last 3 Months In Review
Oh goodness. Remember in March when I said that things were going well and I was feeling good about my stress level? It was true at the time, but little did I know that we were about to really hit a marathon run of events.
Normally, I have our extracurriculars scheduled so that one activity wraps up before the other takes off. Science Olympiad is normally active from September through April and then dance picks up in May. I added my youngest kid to the Science Olympiad team this year, effectively doubling my coaching duties. The team he is on is the team for new students and those who cannot commit to the requirements of intense competition, so I was planning to drop the coaching I was doing for his team in February. His team exceeded all expectations and made it to state competition. As we went into state competition, I was confident that we were wrapping up the competition season for both middle school teams. That didn’t hold true either, as our B1 middle school team and high school team both qualified for Nationals. This meant that my family would need to go to Nebraska so that my eldest could compete and my youngest could be an alternate.
From the beginning of April through the first weekend of June we participated in a number of big events: an end-of-the-year performance of Mary Poppins Jr., Student Company rehearsal and show (that started 2 days after Mary Poppins), Recital photos and other costume preparations, a trip to Nebraska for Nationals, and Recital the following weekend.
By the time I got to Nationals, I was having the normal burnout feelings where everything related to our extracurricular activities felt like a chore and there wasn’t enough time to recover between events.
Does that mean I failed to balance our schedule?
No. I felt burnout much later this year and believe it was only present because of the extended competition season. I didn’t realize there would be so much non-competition preparation to do just to attend and participate in all of the events that weekend. I also feel like I recovered much more quickly than last year. Last year, I was well into July before I could think about the next school year. This year, I’m a week out and feel much better than I did 3 weeks ago. I think that was attributable to high stress, poor nutrition while traveling, and way too many late nights and early mornings that week.
What should I do differently next time?
- Prioritize sleep and nutrition before, during, and after travel.
- Follow lists that I’ve created for these events to get prepared.
- Plan better for the days between closely scheduled events by making sure that meals are planned and everyone knows their responsibilities during this time.
- Remind myself that the more we do ahead of time, the more I can enjoy the event itself. Being present for these events is so important in connecting with and supporting my kids.
- Give myself more grace for not knowing things. I didn’t know what I didn’t know until we went through it.
What other ideas do you have about helping to keep things balanced? What successes are you celebrating?