schedule – whatmamathinks

Once upon a time I was a super human. I kept all important dates of school, practice schedules, concert schedules, swim meet schedules in my head – for both kids. Before Google calendar, I wrote all the dates down on our wall calendar in our kitchen for easy access for all. However, easy access for my family meant asking mom/wife.

“When is Ryan’s baseball practice and Sahana’s softball game?” Sean would ask. And crazily enough, I would know the dates.

My kids never went to the same school. When Ryan entered kindergarten, Sahana started middle school. So I got bombarded with emails from 2 schools. And I read each one of them meticulously. I knew the dates of PTA meetings and string concerts, and first grade author’s tea. While I did not attend PTA meetings, I did my share of classroom volunteering when needed. Anyway, bottom line is that once upon a time I was my family’s walking Google calendar. I knew it all in my head.

As Sahana got older, she started taking more responsibilities for her own schedule. Gradually, all her schedule information started sliding off from my brain as she started keeping track. She arranged for her own rides to school concerts, and when she started driving, drove herself to places where she needed to be. My brain then focused on Ryan’s schedule and I did him a disservice by constantly supplying him with dates of his events. Even when he went to high school he depended on me to know the important school dates and swim meet dates. And the control freak that I am, I continued to keep all those in my head. Till I realized I don’t need to anymore. I can clear that space in my memory by giving him the reins of his own activities. So when he asked about dates of his meets, I calmly told him to look it up by logging on to the website.

“Just tell me, it is easier!”

“I have to look it up too. So you do it since it is your meet.” That was a white lie, but it worked. Ryan started looking up on his own. Slowly and I mean, very slowly, he started getting responsible for his own activities.

The husband, on the other hand, was more difficult to train.

“When is…?”

“I am not sure, I forwarded you the email. Look it up” – became my standard response.

I still get the emails from Ryan’s school, which I still read but I do not keep the dates in my head for the most part. I jot down important parent’s meetings in our Google calendar but the rest I simply forward to Ryan. Recently, I saw a text exchange between father and son, which happened while I was still sleeping.

Ryan: “When is my SAT prep class?”

Sean: “I am not sure. I don’t remember getting that email. Mom will know. Let her wake up.”

Me, after waking up: “I forwarded both of you that email. Check your mail.”

They did. The information was there. It was so fun to simply write “check your email”. It is such a relief to not be as responsible anymore. From a super human, I have become just a human with memory space cleared for what I want to store in it.

I love being a parent. And I love seeing the slow transformation of my children taking over the control of their lives. There is a slight pang in my heart, I will not deny, at the fact that they are grown up. However, the dominant feeling is satisfaction and yes, relief.

I woke up sad. If my husband was reading this, he would say ‘Tell me something new!’ But the truth is I wake up grumpy and warn my family not to talk to me till I get that first sip of coffee, but I don’t wake up sad. Grumpy vs sad, there is a difference.

Today I woke up with a heavy heart because today was going to be my day of updating our google calendar, today would be the day to put all those hand written, hastily scribbled notes on the paper calendar, official. I had ignored them for a while hoping they would go away if I laughed with my husband, exchanged ideas with friends, played with Sage, read with Ryan and listened to music with Sahana. But they weren’t going anywhere, so today would be the day to grab the bull by the horns.

I opened up my laptop and my husband went out with the trimmer to trim the edges of the lawn. I looked at my schedule and despaired at the different color coded activities that made the google calendar a work of art. Ryan needed to be at football practice three times a week and his swim team practice was three times a week as well. Sahana had to be at her swim team practice four times a week, there would be an hour of dryland on top of that. I work two evenings a week. How??? This was mathematically impossible!!! The house was quiet, the children were still sleeping, the neighborhood hadn’t really woken up. I could hear the muted sound of Sean’s trimmer doing its job.

I felt an existential angst that I have never felt before. This was not living! This is not what I imagined life would be for me, hasty meals and quick peck on the cheeks as we exchanged car keys. We couldn’t have a meal together any day of the week. Meal times are sacred for us. We connect then, exchange stories, laugh with, and sometimes, at each other. And who could I blame but myself? I signed them up, I paid for the classes. I had over committed. Not willingly, but caved in. I couldn’t say a firm ‘No’ when Ryan requested to play football. We were becoming the family who ate meals at McDonald’s (we wouldn’t go that far, the McDonald’s part is more for effect:) )and ran to their next committment. While I was busy feeling sorry for myself, I didn’t realize the sound of the trimmer had stopped. I heard Sean call out my name,

‘Come quick and bring the camera!’

‘Not now, I am busy!’

‘Please, come now, bring the camera!’

Disgruntled, I got the camera and stormed out with an exasperated ‘What???’

Sean was standing in front of an exquisitely woven, thin, almost translucent work of art – a spider web. He stood in front of it in awe watching the newly risen sun reflecting its morning fresh light, creating brilliant hues of green and blue. The gentle breeze swung the spider web, ever so gently. There was not a sound to be heard, just Sean standing there with a look of utter admiration, his voice hushed to a whisper so as to not disturb the sanctity of the moment. A brilliant sun washed, blue sky, a few yellow butterflies flying around the rhododendron bush, bright red cardinals flying around in the nearby trees. The moment was picture perfect. Nature was mocking my sadness over trivialities of life. I handed Sean the camera, he took some shots of the web. We stood there together looking at this complex and beautiful creation. It will sound cliché, but how can I not say it, that such is life, complex, yet oh so beautiful. We looked for the creator. S/he was nowhere to be seen :)!

When I came back inside, the ‘steel girl’ was back! My confidence surged, I looked down at the colorful google calendar and gave it a ‘I got this’ smile! I was grateful for the moment of shared togetherness, when we both stopped for a moment to take a look outside at the beautiful world out there and hidden joys for us to discover. It shook me out of the ‘Oh, please feel bad for me, because I am over booked’ kind of whining! This crazy schedule is going to be over in a couple of months and life will take some form of normalcy. My worries over schedule seemed so trivial in the grand scheme of things. I counted the blessings I have in my life. I have a man in my life who loves me, I have two healthy children, who, despite being a work in progress, are really delightful, I have friends whose support I can count on in my hours of need, I just got a job that I wanted! Yes, poor you, indeed, madammommy!