My week can be summed up thusly: were I single and childless, I’d be having ice cream for dinner every night this week. 

There was much baseballing these last weeks as summer league (which started nine seconds after spring league ended) went into the finals. The boys played 600 games in four days. They’ve been up at 6 for the last two weeks to take a three-week, day-long class, and then after seven hours of that come home to do homework.

This is the picture of me completely calm and not at all clenching during their champion game:

Baseball is rough. I know we all talk about it being a metaphor for American life and success and all that, but we also forget what it is for the kids. It is a place where we tell them to make mistakes and take risks, but it is a place where your mistake or lack of skill or just bad luck means the advancement of the other team and the cheers of their parents. It is “blowing it” in front of God and country, parents and peers. It’s learning on the fly. It’s being imperfect. It’s big emotions.

It’s hard. It’s so hard.

Throughout these last few months, we saw kids on all the teams stretching and struggling, growing and glowing. Cheers to all the coaches and parents who remembered that this is, in many ways, as much a classroom as anything in school.

Not for nothing, but I am looking forward to us having dinner as a family again. I swear all you parents who have kids in sports year round…how do you do it? I found spring/summer baseball for like 3 months to decimate our schedule, not to mention eating dinner as a family either at 4:30 or 9 PM.

Needless to say, we’re not in the restorative part of the summer. We all need to stop (*insert laugh track from every mother ever*). Laundry. Cooking. Grocery shopping. Dog care. Child care. I refuse to write “self-care” because that term is crazy-making.

I tried some self-care yesterday: I let my daughter watch the G-rated dumbass toy opening videos on she loves so much. I went into my office right next to the playroom and, instead of plugging on with the work, closed my eyes. I set the alarm. 30 minutes. For me. To make sure I was still martyring myself in the grand tradition of parenthood, I napped upright in my chair. Still, it felt so indulgent. I even shut off the computer which was making its usual chirping noises.

And not three minutes into it, my daughter bangs on my door. Why? Because she wants an L.O.L. doll. Mostly for unwrapping purposes.

I can’t usually sleep after being jolted awake like that, so my self-care this week was a three-minute upright nap.

Off to plan our meals for this next week. Perhaps Ben & Jerry will make an appearance as a main course.