It’s almost officially summer.

This should have posted on Tuesday so clearly I am not yet back on track from the spring.  Summer, with everyone home, won’t help so be prepared for things to be a little less organized until they’re back to school in September.

I never did get a post up this season about our typical week, but I’m not sure there was such a thing.  The kids were in school until about 3:00 everyday.  Then our oldest had middle school baseball (practice or game) most days until about 5:00.  The real kicker is the evening timeslot.

Between 5:30 and 8:00 pm in a typical week we had all of the following on weekdays:

• Four soccer practices.  Two each for kids A & C.
• Three baseball games.  One for kid D and two for kid A.
• Three baseball practices for kid A.

Plus a few one time random items that fell in that same weekday timeslot:

• Soccer ratings for kids A & C.
• A makeup soccer game for kid A.  These  are usually on Saturdays.
• A chorus concert for kid A.  A twice annual event for every grade at school.
• A school committee meeting for me.  I never go to these, but this was one where they were soliciting feedback on a new proposal of great significance to us.  Of course it fell in May!
• I spoke at the Kindergarten panel for incoming students.  Again, a one-off that happened to fall in May.

It was quite the juggling act to determine which thing kid A was going to.  And, we had to sort drivers because we almost always had two – three on Mondays – different fields to get to.

Then last week when the playoffs hit it bumped to five baseball games in one week!

So, now we take a deep breathe.  Soccer, and most baseball, is done until next fall/spring.  One baseball team will continue, though in a much less time consuming fashion.  Other kids are participating in swimming lessons, tech camp, and track camp over the summer.  I’m sure we’ll go someplace.

But other things did manage to happen in the past month:

• We finished up gymnastics class, bike club, and math mornings.
• Our youngest boy went to Kindergarten screening and graduated from preschool.
• The kids attended four birthday parties – oddly including each boy exactly once!
• We had three dentist appointments.

I did get some things done around the house also.  I’ll write about those in another post.  And, talk about what I hope to get done over the summer.

It was the usually busy week last week:

• 9 baseball games
• 2 baseball practices
• 3 soccer games
• 2 soccer practices
• 1 soccer ratings (for next Fall)
• 1 gymnastics class
• 2 bike clubs
• 2 math mornings
• 1 playdate

That’s just the kids.  And even this was light as the first grader’s Saturday afternoon was rained out.

We also had two adult medical appointments.

But, we roll on having officially passed the midway point of the baseball/soccer season!

This was the first week of the spring where we had no sports rain-outs!  That gave us a fairly typical spring week of:

• 8 baseball games
• 4 baseball practices
• 4 soccer practices
• 2 soccer games
• 1 gymnastics class
• 2 at bike club
• 2 at Before School Sports
• 2 at Math Morning

My oldest was a tour guide for the 5th graders visiting Middle School.

I didn’t have any specific appointments, but I:

• read and recycled a few back issues of a magazine.
• mailed my last return from last week’s clean out.
• continued work on this month’s clean out.
• dropped off a pair of shoes to be repaired.
• tried using the Instant Pot to hard boil eggs.  That worked really well.
• Built one of two bags of the backlogged LEGO set.  As a result we have half a fire truck.

After some more cold rain over the weekend, today is sunny and the next few days will be truly warm.  We did lose a few more soccer/baseball practices/games, but hopefully the weather will continue to improve.  I discovered this lovely yarn head while cleaning out.

Over the past week I:

• Got all our kitchen knives sharpened.  It was overdue and they work so much better now.
• Put away another batch of winter clothes.  There’s one batch left.
• Bought a bike helmet for one twin whose was too small.
• Paid a field trip fee.
• Scheduled a long overdue doctor appointment.
• Got my garage door fixed.  We had a power outage that seemed to have fried the control board.
• Finally got the new computer to talk to the printer
  • Getting the printer on the wireless network wasn’t too difficult. (Hadn’t set that up before because the previous computer would not talk wirelessly.)  But, the getting the driver set up was trickier because it is getting to be an old printer.  But, it works fine.

And the kids (as appropriate):

• Went to Before School Sports.
• Played three baseball games.
• Went to three baseball practices.
• Went to gymnastics class.
• Went to bike club.
• Went to the Little League Opening Day parade.
• Played in one soccer game.
• Went to one soccer practice.

Even though I didn’t quite get everything done, I did well in April.

• Assemble one LEGO set that needs adult assistance. Sadly, still no.
• Sort through my clothes and keep/donate/recycle.  The quantity is not terrible, but there are a few too many I have not worn in a very long time.  Made it through 75% of this.  Will finish off in May.
• Inspired by others who have embarked on spring cleaning, I will try the method whereby you throw out the number of items as the day of the month, with a few caviats:
  • They have to have been our house for at least a month; same day junk mail doesn’t count.
  • Throwing out = trash/recycle/donate/sell as long as the task fully done by the end of the month.  I think obviously trash will be the easiest here, since no second step is required.
  • If I make it this will be 465 items, so any size counts.
• Get all the kids to their respective activities.  This is no small feat in the spring and will get even worse in May when baseball is in full swing.  So, definitely not the easiest, but the highest priority.

May will largely be a repeat of April:

• Assemble one LEGO set that needs adult assistance.
  • I have other things to assemble now too.
• Finish sorting through my clothes and keep/donate/recycle.
• Because I have momentum at the moment, and more things that still need cleaning out, I’m going for 465 items again.  Yes, one school paper does count.  And, yes, same rules otherwise.  Because I’m mid school papers and there are a lot of them, I’m going to count down from 30 this time.  (Yes, I know May has 31 days, but we’re going to stick with 465 things again.)
• Get all the kids to their respective activities.  This is even trickier in May with baseball is in full swing.  So, definitely still not the easiest, but the highest priority.

It was a busy week last week with a mix of baseball and soccer activities.  It would have been even busier, though, if we hadn’t lost a few instances of both to the continued cold, wet weather.  Collectively we lost one soccer game, two baseball games, and one baseball practice.

Planned kids activities:

• Four kids had their last indoor swimming lessons.
• Two kids had Little League pictures taken.
• The youngest went to her gym and gymnastics classes.  We’re done with gym classes for the season.
• The oldest had three baseball practices and two baseball games.
• Collectively we attended three soccer practices and one soccer game.
• The first grader missed his soccer game in favor of a birthday party.
• Our preschooler went to the circus with friends.
• There was no math morning this week, but the was Before School Sports.

I’m continuing to delay fully putting away winter gear.  I did put away the winter boots and the snow shovels.  But, yesterday it was so cold at soccer that winter jackets, gloves, and hats did little to fend off the cold wind.  And, as crazy as it sounds, we were under a Winter Weather Advisory Sunday for sleet/freezing rain/snow.  We did not have snow, but there was just enough to be noticeable at the start of the Boston Marathon and just to the north they had a full coating of the white stuff.

Monday was so rainy that many Patriot’s Day events were cancelled.  We largely spent the day at home as a result.

With so much baseball (and to a lesser extent soccer), I’m getting less done.  But, I did:

• Change the batteries in two of the thermostats because I noticed the low battery symbol.
• Uploaded the Pampers app (since the online code entry is ending soon) and entered my backlog of codes.  Maybe with the app I won’t let the backlog build as much.  Logging into the computer always seemed a bit much for a single code – once every few months was fine.  Of course, maybe we’ll be done with diapers soon too!
• Took my car in for an oil change.  Apparently Patriot’s Day is a great day to do this as the place was open but empty.