The Rewards are There

Our family is busy.  We don’t set out to be the busiest and most involved family on the block, and I’m sure there are other families out there who’s schedules don’t fit on a 8 ½ x 11 refrigerator calendar like ours does, but we have things going on, well, almost everyday.  This weekend for example, was one of non-stop activities. We had baseball practice, a school dance, a baseball game, two soccer games, friends over, nerf gun wars, volunteering, a cub scout service project, studying for a science test, a sleep-over, craft room painting, lawn mowing, weed pulling and still managed to fit in a 30 minute nap in there. Yeah me!  Needless to say, I’m a little slow this morning and don’t have quite the energy I was hoping to have.

In spite of our schedule though, we still have a meal or two together in there, play a round of Apples to Apples before bed and have two days a week that are completely blank on the calendar! It seems like a lot some days and there are days it’s really just too much to be quite honest.  But the rewards are there.

On Saturday, I took my oldest home in between my youngest son’s soccer games.  He hadn’t been home since nine in the morning and just wanted to be home for a bit before he headed to volunteer at the Y.  On the drive home, he was a little quiet, then out of the blue said, “You know, Mom, I pretty much love baseball and think it’s my favorite sport now.  I had a really good game today.”  I quickly corrected him and told him he had a great game today. He had two hits, (a single and a double), stole four bases, pitched 46 great pitches (not that I was counting), threw a guy out at first and smiled the entire game.   All the driving back and forth to practice, going early for the games, was suddenly not such a big deal.  The confidence in himself was strong and it made me feel great knowing that.  The reward was there.

With him home for a little bit, I drove back to the field and thanked Pam for watching my youngest while I was gone and prepared for round two of soccer.  The team was huddled for a cheer, when the coach realized we had twelve players and they only had five.  She quickly asked for volunteers to play on the other team to help even up the numbers and avoid having seven of our players sit out.  My son’s arm went straight up and volunteered to play for the Vikings instead of the Titans.  I was so proud of him.  He realized it wasn’t a big deal and it could be fun to play against his teammates.   

Again, in the car on the way home, the discussion is always about the “action” of the game. Not only did he score a goal, but played goalie for the first time and had a blast. My little guy was all smiles and said that was the most fun he’s had playing in a long time.   I told him how proud I was of him volunteering and he just smiled. He knew he had done a good thing and was proud of himself for doing so.  The reward was there. 

Even though the weekend was packed with driving here and driving there, in the end, everyone was happy doing what they enjoyed and both looked forward to their next game. So, perhaps being busy isn’t such a bad thing.  As long as the smiles are there, then I’m still ready and eager to chauffer them to every meeting, to every game, to every friend’s house, to 7-11 for sunflower seeds, to the Y to volunteer and to every  school dance to do the chicken dance with friends.  The rewards are there.