Week 8: In Which We Have a Bye Week

Like every good team, we need a bye week once in a while to recuperate. This was a good week for a break--everyone was starting to feel less than fresh when it came to school work, we still had Dad home due to the government furlough, and we had a scheduled field trip. I required only that the kids keep up with their history and science readings so that we would be prepared for next week's co-op.

On Monday our CrossFit Box had holiday hours which translates into huge crowds for workouts. We stayed home and did a workout (WOD) together. You can read about that at the Accidental CrossFitter, if you are at all interested.

If you are wondering how to get your kids more active, how to find time to exercise, or are looking for a sport that everyone in your family can participate in, consider trying CrossFit. While memberships at a box (what CrossFitters call their gyms) can be spendy,  we have made room in our budget for them because fitness has become such an integral part of our lifestyle. If you cannot afford it for long term, many CF boxes have shorter-term contracts where you could get the coaching for the movements and techniques and then simply follow the CrossFit and CrossFit Kids websites, which post WODs every day. I can honestly say I have never been this fit, this strong, or this confident in my own skin. Even when I was involved in athletics, I was only trained for that sport, and I was never involved in any given sport for very long, as I have never really considered myself an athlete. I just played for fun. Now, I am playing again for fun, but life is the game and being fit makes it so much better!

Enough about that...On Wednesday we went to the Kennedy Center for National Symphony Orchestra Youth concert, "Music is a Language." Both kids and I enjoyed it immensely--it's the NSO--how can we not? I appreciate the fact that we live in a place where there are so many opportunities for rich cultural experiences. I do not, however, appreciate the traffic we get stuck in going to such events. Inevitably we come home completely wiped out--not from the event itself, but more from whatever traffic jam we got stuck in, or from having to drive in the city, which fries my neurons horribly. Minivans in the city are just wrong. I need a Mini (without the van part)!

Now with the furlough behind us (until the next government crisis), Dad will return to work tomorrow and we need to get back into routine. I will miss having my best friend around. I will miss having the laundry caught up--he is the best at keeping that under control! While some moms may have been thrown off by having dads around unexpectedly for two whole weeks doing who-knows-what, I was not...at least not much.