YMCA

I've struggled through the years with our various club memberships. As a first year college attendee, my desire was to one day own a gym and be a personal trainer. My path became more clear after Keely was born and I veered towards nursing, but I never thought I'd step completely away from fitness. I was absolutely in love once upon a time.

Through the years, I've had various gym memberships and not one seemed to rekindle my long ago love. I suspect that is because the fire has to come from within and I now have so many other sparks that are more easily tended to it seems.

A successful membership for me means the childcare area has to be as exciting as the work-out opportunities. If my children are screaming and protesting when we head into the gym, I certainly struggle with keeping up the routine. I've seen closets used as the childcare area and a YMCA with childcare through age 6, but no where for my home-schooled eight-year-old. After signing a contract with each of those gyms and loosing hundreds of dollars I have slowly disconnected with that area of my life. Returning seems like a complete uphill battle.

Two years ago, January, I did join the gym here in Lebanon. My New Year's Resolution. It has fulfilled its purpose fairly well. (Ha! I've added weight to my frame.) The kids do enjoy the play area, even Noah. However, in spite of attending fairly regularly I haven't connected with a single person. I hate to admit that I do sort of need some companionship to obtain some accountability. The course instructors, with exception of two, ignore every single person in the room except their "buddies," and not only are the rest of us isolated, but we're sort of aware we're outside the cliche. I hate feeling those high school insecurities at the gym.

The only pool is in Crawfordsville and nearly every time I drive all the way there to swim laps, they have a geriatrics class that completely ignores the lap lane division. I can't even count the number of times I've conked my cranium on a senior citizen. The cardio-machines aren't plentiful, so often they are taken or one is broken and out of commission.

We visited the YMCA yesterday. Not sure why I feel such loyalty to my current gym, because the YMCA is a spa compared to the gym we currently pay membership for at twice the price. (I suspect as a small business owner I realize the impact this new YMCA will have on the future of the very dilapidated gym.) However, I am jumping ship.

The childcare at the YMCA is free, and I pay $3 a trip to my current gym. Having a family focused ministry is near perfect and because of the lay out of the equipment and the plethora of classes, the kids and I are certainly more likely to connect with other families. I am excited. Two lanes for lap swimming, can't beat that!!

The YMCA also hosts Free Monthly Family Nights which the boys will really enjoy. They also have free body composition testing and free wellness appointments with a wellness coach. Noah can take his own class and become certified to use free weights. Then he can join the Youth Training Program and work-out with kids his own age! Classes on land and water are included in membership fees.

The first Friday of every month from 6 to 7pm, the YMCA hosts a family night in the pool. Water volleyball. Big Blow up Toys. Water Polo. Funky Water Relay Races. Fun!

The boys have wanted to return for swim lessons, but for whatever reason we haven't accomplished that this year. We'll certainly be inquiring about lessons at the YMCA. They have classes for Simon and even Mommy and Me.

In the past, we've done Gym & Swim with other homeschool children at the YMCA. Keely and Noah really enjoyed this and I think Samuel would as well. I am not sure how they pull it off, but the Gym & Swim program appears to only be an hour long. I believe though, our previous program was every other week and this one appears to be each Wednesday.

When I am fit, I hope to join Social Cycle. It is a small group that meets at the gym and then rides 15 to 20 miles through Boone County. Sound like fun!?!

Oh, did I mention the strategic board game club? This group meets every other Friday in the multi-purpose room at 7pm. Totally Noah's style... A card club is also available every Wednesday afternoon.

Karate for age five and up. Maybe next year for Samuel. Basketball clinic as well, or soccer. Flag football. Volleyball. T-ball clinic starts in November. Simon can attend tumbling, even Samuel. Kids Night Out. Keely would enjoy the Teen Nights. I hate to admit it, but I am considering the adult kickball league.

Not going to overwhelm. Just going to introduce some fun.

Family Game Night

We have started family game night. Although we spend a great deal of time together, it isn't generally structured around fun and since the kids have SO many fabulous games that we never really play with, we agreed that Friday evenings would be dedicated to this cause. Noah is thrilled because I told them they could invite friends, or we could invite family. Keely is indifferent, mostly because she is at that awkward age where she feels more comfortable with ladies older than her, but can't really call them friends because they're more like mentors. Friends her age have different priorities.

Anyway, I was thinking once Samuel started Kindergarten we could center family game night around the alphabet. Week one, we could prepare a meal with foods starting with A: Andouille sausage, asparagus, avacadoes, applesause, Alaskan king crab. We could watch Aladdin or play Apples to Apples, or read "And to Think that I saw It on Mulberry Street" by Dr. Suess.

Friday nights...bored...wanna join us? The kids would be thrilled. Bring a game. Bring a food. Or don't bring anything. We'll have fun!

Mean Mommy

Samuel has begun tattle-telling. Often Boah (a combination of Bubbie and Noah) is mean and has boomed him in the eye. Other times Keely is mean and put him in time-out, but occasionally Mike and I are the mean ones. He woke up immediately today and said Boah was mean. I asked Samuel why Boah was mean and he replied, "I no-know?"

I'll admit though, I have an ornery streak and could justly be called "mean mommy" every now and then. I was reminded of that today at McDonald's. Noah wanted to stop by the Redbox and pick up some movies. After he picked one out for himself, another one for Keely and a farm movie for Samuel, he jumped back in the van. I looked in both directions as he slowly proceeded to his seat the back. There were no cars in sight so I hit the reverse with a little punch sending Noah to his knees, grasping the seats. Just as he had regained his balance with a growl, I gave an every peppier punch in forward, sending him into a heaping pile within his seat. It was really pretty funny, especially because Noah is such a dramatic actor.

I asked them if they would aggravate their kids as I have them and Noah yelled out, "Absolutely!" Noah said he couldn't wait to pull the "ditch 'em" trick. When the kids were younger, we would often drop off or pick up books on hold at the library. We would drive through the circle, Keely would jump out to drop off books and when she came back to the van we would drive ahead so she would have to chase us a bit to get in. The boys would laugh hysterically. Occasionally, I would just drive on around the circle before she turned back and would park in the parking lot. She was always in clear site of me, but the first few times she would look around wondering where we had gone (not fearful because she had become use to her aggravating mother by that age).

Noah was always a bit too young to tease, but one afternoon Mike and I couldn't resist. We had taken him to Applebees and as we were all crawling into the van he remembered he left his toy inside the restaurant, in the booth. We told him to run back in and get it and we would watch for him. Mike and I really debated because he was still rather young and we might really scare him, but being the mean mom the desire to trick him got the best of me. We had parked directly in front of the restaurant, straight out the front doors, so Mike and I decided we would move the van and park beside the restaurant. Again, we were still in plain site of him, but rather than being out front we were down the sidewalk to the side of the front door. Noah came walking out and immediately I regretted the plan. I felt horrible guilt and knew he was going to panic. He ran out holding his toy, looked up for the van and realizing it wasn't there, he jerked back snapping his fingers with the expression, "CRAP! They GOT ME!!!" Mike and I laughed so hard we couldn't even breathe. He heard us laughing and was so irritated at us, but not for leaving him - for getting him! This was suppose to be something we could only pull off on his sister! Too funny. He wasn't our baby anymore.

Please, no one call Child Protection Services. We are loving parents, although we do pleasure in a bit of torture!