A few hours to myself

Time to sit with my headphones on, listening to whatever I want, whether its Darius Rucker or John Legend, Adele or Beyonce.  I've got my book and my crochet, going back and forth depending on the mood.  My coffee and a snack of trail mix and potato chips.   I can catch up with a few friends, chit-chat.  Write a blog post.  A couple hours to sit back and not worry about going anywhere.  I wonder if there's a bar in this place?

Oh - wait, let me pay attention, my son is about to swim.

Sit back, put your feet up, wait for the 2 minutes you've got to pay attention.

Want a sure way to get a couple hours to yourself every few weeks and feel like a good mom for cheering enthusiastically for your kid at the same time?  Swim team.  A typical swim meet runs about 3 hours, sometimes 2 or 3 days in a row.  In last month's meet, my son swam for 9.7049 minutes, divided into 6 events over 2 days.  The other 5 hours, and 51 minutes?  I read half a book that I've been stuck on for weeks.  Finished a crocheted skirt.  Caught up with a friend who I don't see that often because we're both busy doing the mommy thing.  As for her swim meet time?  She has 2 swimmers, so she was at the pool for 8 hours each day, and her girls, combined, probably swam a total of, say 16 minutes (they're a bit faster than my son).

On the other hand - my daughters play basketball and tennis and sing.  The games and matches can run from a little less than an hour to one and a half hours.  In basketball, she plays for most of the game.  Tennis, of course, she plays the entire game.  So there's no down time for me.  I definitely can't get any reading done, although I can crochet, so can manage to work on a scarf or hat or something like that.  And I have to pay attention the entire time.  Other daughter - singing and acting.  If she's got a chorus performance or in a play - I've got to pay attention the whole time and, anyway, its usually kinda dark.  This is not to say that I don't enjoy going out and cheering for my girls, because I absolutely, so proudly do.  So much in fact, my cowbell often goes "missing".  (And, by the way, cowbells are looked down on in the theatre.)

But if we're talking about a spectator event at which you can almost relax - and yes, I consider sitting on a hard bench in a humid, hot swimming pool with 500 other parents randomly screaming "kick!" at children who cannot hear them at all for hours to be 'relaxing'.   Put your kid on swim team.


*Photo - feet provided by swim mom Charon (that's with a "C" not an "S")