Something Normal?

Part of my job as a foster parent is to try to give the kids as normal a life as possible within the restraints of department policy. One of the ways I do that by making sure the kids are involved in community activities. In our city we have a great soccer club that focuses on teaching the kids skills, and how to have fun with the game. It's a non-competitive club, so at the end of the year, they all participate in the tournament. They love it! And for kids like mine, it gives them a place where it's OK and appropriate for them to be aggressive!

Now tell me, do all soccer moms have this problem (and I use the term soccer mom loosely, it's not something I really ever aspired to be. My older daughters make fun of me for it!) I now have three kids in soccer. They are at different levels based on age, so they are on separate teams. Cindy has practice 2 times per week from 7-8 across town. Annie has practice those same two days per week from 5:30-6:30 here in our subdivision's park. My three year old, (this is his first season, and he's SO excited!) has practice on one of those two days at a park about a mile away from 6:00 to 6:30. Add to this feeding all of them dinner, picking them up from counseling on one of those days at 5:00 and from visitation on the other day at 5:00, and picking 2-year-old up from daycare before 5:30. On top of that, I work until 7:30 on one of those days and can only really offer my services to the chauffeuring on the other day. (I will pick Cindy up at 8:00 on both days.) My mom about lost her sanity yesterday. She couldn't work it out.

This is all doable. I had to sell my mom on the idea that the kids would have to be eating at different times on those two days, and that their dinners would have to be things like sandwiches and fruit and such easy, van friendly stuff. On the second of the two days per week, I can do most of the transport as I get off work between 5:00 and 5:15. My mom is still in a near panic. It gets harder and harder for her to deal with this kind of stuff as she gets older, and in a lot of ways sicker. The meds are taking a toll on her mind and body. Everything turns into a stress for her, and she was very grumpy this morning about the whole dinner thing.

The summer is kind of the same. We enroll the kids in day camp at a local facility, but also in swim lessons. The swim lessons are for 2 weeks, and usually in the morning, so they go there before going to the camp. This one deviation throws her. The kids love it, and they are becoming strong swimmers! I think it's important for them to have this because it is a normal activity in the lives of children, and it allows them to be children. I wish I could make it easier on my mom somehow. But I don't know how, because it isn't a difficult thing, it's just that she is so easily stressed.

My kids have a lot of other stuff going on in their lives. They have PSR workers, counselors, visitations, often more doctors appointments than most kids. Those things make them different, and make them be less like kids and more like little adults. I really feel things like day camp, soccer, swim lessons, church camp, cheer camp, etc. make them feel more like the kids they go to school with. They can share stories about their kid activities with their friends instead of explaining what a PSR worker is. They can talk about their pretty new pink and purple soccer balls instead of their visit with their case worker.

So the main question here is this: while I'm trying to make their lives more normalized am I making mine less normal than the average mom? And is getting them involved with "normal" activities really normalizing their lives or just making them overwhelmed with busy schedules? Do I draw a line? And if so, where?