Who Needs Hobbies?

I'm not the only one here at the Bears' Den who's embarking on a new school year: we finally found Keira a "real" preschool, and managed to get her in despite the fact that registration ended six months ago! She's taken a once-weekly dropoff preschool class through Parks & Rec and did great, so we'd been hemming and hawing over whether to just keep enrolling her in those or find her an actual preschool (and pay actual big bucks in tuition).

We'd pretty much decided on the first option when one of my colleagues recommended a preschool she'd once worked at. A casual phone call to the preschool office lead to our little Kiwi being enrolled in their 4-year-olds class that starts in just over a week. It fell into place quickly and perfectly--it's conveniently located, has great parent ratings, and is totally afforadable--and I think it's going to work out great. Kiwi is beyond ready for the experience, and I'll admit that I'm beyond ready to have a little break from her incessant (adorable, intelligent, hilarious, beloved....did I mention incessant?) talking for a few hours each week!

Filling out the packet of enrollment forms, I was stumped when I came to the line that said "Mother's hobbies:______________" Ummm. Bear suggested I put down "sleeping," but I said I'm pretty sure you have to do something regularly to count it as a hobby. What do I do in my spare time, anyway? The only honest answer that came to mind was "watching reality TV," but I wasn't about to put THAT embarrassing truth in writing for my child's teacher to see. That packet has been completed for days, and sits on our table waiting to be turned in at "Meet the Teacher Day" this week, but that blank is still...well...blank.

I have no hobbies.

At first, this concerned me quite a bit. (Hey, if "The Ants Go Marching" sparked an existential crisis, you know pretty much anything is liable to send me into at least a momentary bout of navel-gazing.) Most people I know could answer that question easily: Photography. Cooking. Softball. Antiques. Woodworking. Quilting. Reading. The more I think about it, though, the more I'm OK with the fact that instead of having one or two huge obsessions, I fill my spare time with a fairly random assortment of projects. Other than the last couple of hours at the end of the day, when my brain absolutely refuses to do anything but ponder who will be eliminated from what contrived TV competition that night, I'm always working on something: setting up our classroom website, planning a party of some sort (currently my sister's baby shower and Keira's 4th birthday party), blogging, working on the girls' photo albums, reorganizing the wholefreakinghouse, taking classes here and there to earn units...just STUFF. That doesn't make for an easy answer on a questionnaire, but it suits me just fine. Maybe I'll put down "bodybuilding" or "ghost-hunting" just to see the looks on their faces when they meet me.

It's been a busy week, chock-full of STUFF (the first week of kindergarten is a whirlwind for all involved, and when the parents tell us their kids collapse into 3-hour naps every day after school, I'm more than a little envious!), but the part that produced the cutest photos was having the girls' cousins spend the night for the first time last night. The kids had a blast!











In the next couple of weeks, we've got three birthday parties, our wedding anniversary, a rare 4-day work week for me, an "American Idol" concert (three guesses as to which one of the Bears will be attending that one!), Kiwi's first day of preschool, and my long-awaited date to see Eclipse with Bittle. At the end of all that, maybe I'll be ready to pursue that "sleep hobby" Bear talked about...