Particularly because my inner Grover insists there's a monster at the end of it. Particularly on Saturday.
It's a scheduling
Kelsey's Girl Scouts troupe has been working very hard on their display on Korea that will be part of the annual International Festival. Kelsey digs learning about new cultures and ethnicities. A lot. Earlier in the month I was planning out my calendar, and at some point I had a jotted a note reading:
So I got about it and lo! The Girl Scout Council of our town had scheduled the International Festival on January 29th.
But wait, Kelsey had another commitment on the 29th. As in, my little Special K (my newest nickname for her!) had earned herself a place in the district spelling bee after kicking some booty in the school bee.
Now, some of you know that in my former career, I was something of an executive scheduler, and as such, am a little O-to-the-C-to-the-D when it comes to those pesky little things called details...so, when organizations that work with school-age children schedule major events fail to consult the academic calendars, respective to the population they serve, it grates on my nerves much like the waitstaff at the Olive Garden manage to do with the parmigiano. Because clearly nothing says, "We're training your girls up to be short-sighted leaders - but it will be meaningful and fun along the way!" than a myopic planning maneuver such as this. Oh, the other pet peeve is that our town's IF is not listed on the Events Planner portion of the GS COLORADO website, but the neighboring town's is listed as if it is the only one for our region, in February....seriously, these people need some admin skillz!
So there was my visceral reaction - but then Kelsey's was somewhat heartbreaking. She quickly melted down into her woebegone state that is fairly common anytime anything deviates AT.ALL from how she expected things to be (I feel for my future son-in-law, how I feel for him and pray for a gentle, long-suffering soul to step into that future role!). Then she said, "Well, then I just won't do the spelling bee - I'll do the International Festival instead!"
At this point, the tiger mom in me - who normally pushes the snooze button and stays in hibernation as long as possible - came out and said, "No ma'am. You most certainly are not going to forsake an academic activity for some fluffy little foreign fair. You're going to spell like a champ, like it or not. This is not the first time you'll have to make a decision in a conflict, so put on your big girl panties and suck it up, buttercup." Because I have principles, and academics are important in them. So are actual leadership/service learning opportunities - if they were going to help out at Habitat for Humanity that Saturday, I'd have probably let her skip the spelling bee. But to forsake it just to go hang out with a group of girls, many of them the mean girl types at that, gabbing about Bieber and Taylor Swift and what clothes are in while they go and participate in a Cliff Notes version of world travel? Nah.....
So....after that it stood that our weekend schedule would look like this:
Saturday:
Leave the house at 7:00 am in order to get from our northern-most district home to the southern-most district school by 7:30
7:30 - check-in at the spelling bee
8:00 - 9:30 Wait as Kelsey completes the written spelling bee exam - if she makes the cut, then we go on to oral round at 10:00
10:00-noon - Oral Round .... OR if she gets cut, make a mad dash to the other side of town and get her to the IF
Meanwhile, I will have both of the boys because Seth was informed at the beginning of the month that this was his Saturday to work.
And I'm on deadline for some grantwriting.
And holy cow am I realizing just how diligent I have to be with the time management trying to get this all done....
Also? You extracurricular people who can't plan to save your life are putting a big rain cloud on my parade!
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