Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Juggling Act

Work-life balance is an ideal state for any working parent. The life part of that equation typically means spending time with your family. In that sense, my work-life balance has been great because I'm able to spend the time I need at work and the time I need with my family. So leave it up to me to throw another variable into the plan.

I started coaching baseball a few weeks ago for the Lawrence Little League. My team, the Lawrenceville Fuel, is made up of about 11 kids between the ages of 10 and 12. I volunteered to help out as an assistant coach because I love watching baseball, I love playing baseball, and most of all because I love teaching baseball. I spent a few years helping out my brother's team at Trevor Day School, but I wanted to do more. And now that we've settled down in our new home, when the opportunity presented itself, I jumped on it.

It wasn't until recently that I've started to wonder if I've taken too much on. I haven't heard of anyone talk about work-life-baseball balance, so I may be entering uncharted territories. For most of the other coaches in the league, baseball and life go together since their sons and/or daughters are playing with them. Kaylani's still a bit young to be in the league, so for now, I'm on my own and baseball is something outside of life. And like baseball, it's how far outside that matters.

Luckily, Mommy is pretty supportive of me coaching since she knows how much I love the game. Just like when I went back to work, it's an adjustment for me to make sure that I'm spending quality time with Kaylani since I can't make up for it in quantity. Coaching takes up about 3-4 hours a week of my non-work time, which doesn't sound like much, but it is. It sure feels like a lot of times when I miss things like putting Kaylani to sleep like I did tonight.

There's no way I'm going to give up coaching because I've committed to it already, so I guess I'm complaining about nothing. But when the kids are goofing around instead of trying to learn baseball, it really makes me question if it's worth sacrificing an hour I could have spent with Kaylani. Maybe in 5 years I'll coach Kaylani and not have to sacrifice anything, but until then, I just hope that it is worth it. And the only way to make that happen is to win a championship. Go Fuel!

2 comments:

Tom Sherman said...

No goofing off. Punish them!

Danika said...

Please figure out how to coach 5-year-old girls T-Ball!!!! PLEASE!!! Unless you promise, I won't watch Kaylani for U2.