spring break: for real this time

Olivia's soccer coach sent an email the first weekend of spring break reminding everyone of Monday night's practice.  It also instructed that even though Wednesday and Thursday practices were canceled, “players should get in some quality time working on foot-skills, juggling, and doing the 'Pele series'" (instructional foot skill videos with routines that the girls must practice and 'pass').  

I had to wonder, why “should” they?  Will players from other teams bound ahead and snag our college scholarships while we’re lazying it up chasing easter eggs instead of soccer balls?  Will a week away from drills ruin everyone's chances for the national team?

The coach is a nice guy, but he’s gotten caught up in this whole soccer-industrial-complex thing I dislike so much.  In response to his call for compulsory foot skill drilling over Easter weekend, I only have one thing to say: “Thank God we quit that team!”

Yes, I finally put my money where my mouth is.  The pressures of this team had turned a fun activity into a tedious chore.  By Christmas, Olivia had had enough.  Steve and I agreed. 

I need to remind the manager to take me off the email list, but in the meantime, I haven't really minded being privy to their many obligations.  The information only reinforces our decision, showing me how we have reclaimed our holiday weekends from the grip of those soul-sucking soccer tournaments.  Instead, Olivia participates in synchronized swimming twice a week and happily drops into the ice rink on Saturday mornings for a 30-minute skating lesson.  All fun.

She’s not going to get to the Olympics on that schedule, it's true, but she wasn’t going there anyway, so who cares? 

Ironically, unlike Olivia's U11 team, both Gareth’s nationally ranked club team, and his high school team gave him the entire spring break off—with no mention of independent drills or “optional” practices for kids who were still in town.  

So, freed from Olivia's soccer commitments, we had spring break for real.  No organized sports at all. 

Instead, we did this:

me (3rd from right), steve (unmissable yellow), olivia (pink in front), gareth (2nd from left)
the sign says "Harper's Ferry or Bust"

We rode our bikes 30 miles to Harper’s Ferry with 3 other families, camped for two nights and returned by bike on Saturday. 

How did we get the kids to do it? Olivia likes to bike, so she jumped for joy at the news of our trip.  In typical teen fashion, however, Gareth nearly turned inside out when I broke the news.  Still, I think he has figured out that we give him his freedom and enable his burgeoning social life in exchange for a certain obligatory quota of “family time.”  When he recognizes that an event falls under this rubric, he resigns himself to endure, even while offering dire predictions of eternal misery, and making redundant proclamations like "This is soooo stupid!" 

So we unplugged and set out along the C&O Canal with 16 bicycles, 7 adults, 9 kids, and a lot of determination.  We stayed over in a sort of cheesy KOA campground just outside the town of Harper’s Ferry. That’s ok.  Steve will be the first to tell you, that while a bike seat can for sure do some damage, a little cheese never hurt anybody. 

The place had ping pong, horseshoes, a huge moon-bouncy type trampoline, mini-golf and most importantly, showers.  The beauty of all this stuff:  nothing electric (besides light bulbs), no schedule, very little supervision.  The kids came and went as they pleased, met other kids, played games, roamed the property…chilled--or as Olivia would say, "chillaxed."  The only thing we required of them (aside from asking them to ride their bikes 60 miles!) was that they wash the dishes.  A totally fair camping chore. 

At night, we listened to music, patted ourselves on the back for completing the first leg of our journey, and joked about the many pained "gooches" huddled around the fire (This was a new word for me. I had planned to link to a definition, but when I went searching for one, I found quite a bit of unsavory extraneous material.  So I'll tell you it's a particularly sensitive crotch area just behind what Steve would call "the doodads."  If you decide to google it, be prepared for an as-the-crow-flies diagram of a man or a woman's underside, among other things). 

None of the definitions say so, but if you're not an experienced biker, the gooch can take quite a beating on the first trip out.  Not even that persistant complaint, however, could overshadow that the weekend offered:

No turf.  No referees.  No coaches.  

Just this:

And this:

And this:

I think I am like a lot of other parents: wishing for a slower life, wanting to reduce stressful schedules, hoping to unplug, seeking quiet…accepting that I can’t always make it happen.

So when I do, I savor it.

And despite the litany of pre-trip protests, even Gareth reaped the benefits of the space we put between ourselves and our ridiculous schedules. 

I hope that however you did/do it, you also stole some time for a restful spring break--for real.