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coffeebean13

Hi everyone!

It's been a while since I have posted here although I do check the forums regularly. It's been about 4 months now at our new gym here in WA (we moved from TX late March due to military relocation). Our DD has made some great friends and has been progressing like crazy in the new environment. We are so super proud of her! Now that we are almost settled here I was pondering the question: How do other families with children in gymnastics operate? What are your schedules like? Does anyone have outside employment? How has gymnastics changed your families?

Just curious!:)
 
Those are interesting questions! I do not work outside the home. I am a crafter/seamstress/jewelry designer, but I only do a few shows a year, and really it only brings in my play money. I have three kids who are all home schooled (I didn't home school so that DD could do gymnastics, it happened the other way around)

My DH does video taping/editing for whatever level our daughter is when we go to meets, and he makes videos for other parents that want them. It pays the meet fees, and most of the obligation fees, so that is a big help.

DD is a L5/L6, and currently goes to gym 3x a week 4 hours at a time. Not too bad during the summer, but it's harder during the school year because they go until 9:30 at night. And where we live it snows. Yuck!:indifferent:

My twin DS(5YO) will probably start some kind of sport this year, and I'm not looking forward to the running around. I will try to have it happen while DD is at the gym, since I will be out and about anyway.

As for changes in our family? We have a beam in our living room like everyone else! We plan vacations around DD's days off (her gym will not allow anyone to compete unless they have at least 93% attendence!) I've met some really nice parents (of course I've met a few, ahem, not so nice parents too:rolleyes:) and I've learned more gymnastics lingo than I ever knew there was (and that has only showed me how much I still don't know!)

Glad to hear you are settling in! What level is your child?

Snowbound
 
Good to hear your daughter is doing so well! We moved from Texas to Washington also, back in 2001. We were at Ft Hood and then moved out here after the military.

As for our crazy gymnastics schedule - well, we have 2 girls on team, my daughter and my step-daughter. They practice 12 hours a week so we spend a lot of time at the gym. We lived very close to the gym though, so I ofter go back home for a while or go run errands. We love our gym and coaches so it is a nice place to hang out :)
 
I'll start with the employment question. Both dh and I work outside the house, full-time. Dd goes to catholic school (8th grade this coming yr.) and we also have a ds who goes to public school (3rd grade this coming yr.) Dd ends school at 3pm and starts gym at 3:30 until 7:30. As I said, I do work full-time outside the house. My hours are 6:30am - 2:30pm. I leave work immediately at 2:30 to make my 25 minute ride to her school, pick her up at 3pm and straight off to the gym. I turn right around and get home for when ds's bus gets home at 3:50pm. DH has crazy hrs and works late often, but he is always home to get the kids off in the morning - I do the evening shift.

During the summer, her hrs this yr are 2-7pm (M & Tues); 2-6pm (W & Th) and 9-12pm (F). Well, at 2pm I'm still working so I have recruited my Aunt to help. She picks dd up M-Th and takes her to gym for me and I do all the picking up. On Fri, I leave work for an hr at 8am to go pick her up & take her to gym. Another mom takes dd & her BFF to BFF's house because BFF'd mom works too. Then I pick her up from BFF's house around 3 when I'm done work. It's crazy, but us moms always help each other out because we know how hard it is.

Now ds is also involved in sports (travel soccer, wrestling, basketball and right now flag football.) Today he has a game @ 7pm, dd would be getting done at 7pm - can't be 2 places at once. I know dd doesn't accomplish much on Mondays from 6-7pm, so today I am pulling her at 6pm - she will be very happy when she finds this out.

My general rule is games over practices as far as viewing goes. Dh coaches the soccer team, so we do split up if we have to.

Gymnastics really hasn't changed our family because it is something we have grown-up with. Dd will be 13 in Sept and she has been doing gym since she was 4 and started the whole pre-team/team thing when she began Kindergarten so it has always been a part of what we do as a family. We usually will vacation during gym closures as someone else has mentioned, but will not pass up an opportunity just because of gym either. It's a fine line that I try to balance.


Hi everyone!

Now that we are almost settled here I was pondering the question: How do other families with children in gymnastics operate? What are your schedules like? Does anyone have outside employment? How has gymnastics changed your families?

Just curious!:)
 
I work full time but am lucky that my schedule is fairly flexible and I can arrange it around whatever is going on that week. I normally work from 7:00 until 2:30.

DD goes to gym M, T 1-5, W, 1-3, Th, F 8:30-1:00. I carpool with 2 other girls so between the 3 of us parents we have a pretty good system working as far as driving/picking up goes.

I have 2 boys who are heavily involved on baseball (Travel, school and REC) so when I am not driving to Gym I am on a ball field somewhere in the State. It's a crazy life but I guess we've become so used to it that it seems "normal' to us. LOL!

DD's fall schedule will be M-Th 4:30-8:30 and Saturday 9-1. I am looking forward to this schedule because this will be the first time in years that I don't have to do the mad dash to school and race to get to Gym by 3:00 thing. She is 10 and will be in the 5th grade. I am happy that she will be able to come home and get homework done before Gym.

Tracy
 
Our schedule

"How do other families with children in gymnastics operate? What are your schedules like? Does anyone have outside employment? How has gymnastics changed your families?"

Both parents work, but dad is self-employed, so he has the freedom to work around the kids sports schedules. DD recently changed gyms and now goes to a wonderful gym that is 40 miles from our home. She goes 5x a week, 4 hours each practice (age 10, level 8). During the summer dad takes her on Monday and Tuesday evenings at 5:00 and I pick her up at 9:00 p.m. On W, Th & Fr she is there from 8:00 to 12:00. I take her and get to work late and dad picks her up. We've been very fortunate that family and friends have taken an interest and make the trip to the gym for us once or twice a week. Our DS is on a traveling baseball team - also out of town, both spring and fall, so we divide and conquer when necessary. Our kids sports have hijacked our lives - but it is really only for a few years so we'll live with it. We've also discovered that there is no time for getting into trouble!
 
thanks!

Those are interesting questions! I do not work outside the home. I am a crafter/seamstress/jewelry designer, but I only do a few shows a year, and really it only brings in my play money. I have three kids who are all home schooled (I didn't home school so that DD could do gymnastics, it happened the other way around)

My DH does video taping/editing for whatever level our daughter is when we go to meets, and he makes videos for other parents that want them. It pays the meet fees, and most of the obligation fees, so that is a big help.

DD is a L5/L6, and currently goes to gym 3x a week 4 hours at a time. Not too bad during the summer, but it's harder during the school year because they go until 9:30 at night. And where we live it snows. Yuck!:indifferent:

My twin DS(5YO) will probably start some kind of sport this year, and I'm not looking forward to the running around. I will try to have it happen while DD is at the gym, since I will be out and about anyway.

As for changes in our family? We have a beam in our living room like everyone else! We plan vacations around DD's days off (her gym will not allow anyone to compete unless they have at least 93% attendence!) I've met some really nice parents (of course I've met a few, ahem, not so nice parents too:rolleyes:) and I've learned more gymnastics lingo than I ever knew there was (and that has only showed me how much I still don't know!)

Glad to hear you are settling in! What level is your child?

Snowbound

Thanks for the reply! :)

DD is L4 and currently has gym M, W, TH for a total of 8 hours. The schedule doesn't change too much for the school year. I think they will go M, W, & F once school starts. I also do not work outside the home, at least not at the moment; I have thought about getting a part time job to keep me occupied during the school year but nothing serious just yet; haven't worked a "real" job since I left the military so not sure what I want to do!

So far I think we have done well, but with every new skill learned I catch myself wondering how other parents do it as their children advance. :)
 
Good to hear your daughter is doing so well! We moved from Texas to Washington also, back in 2001. We were at Ft Hood and then moved out here after the military.

As for our crazy gymnastics schedule - well, we have 2 girls on team, my daughter and my step-daughter. They practice 12 hours a week so we spend a lot of time at the gym. We lived very close to the gym though, so I ofter go back home for a while or go run errands. We love our gym and coaches so it is a nice place to hang out :)

It is amazing what DD has accomplished since getting here, plus the group of girls that she is with are just awesome. Thankfully the moms are, too :p!
Right now we are close to our gym also (less than 5 minutes), but we are moving this week so our drive will be questionable for the first few trips (normally it's not terrible, but as with any change it'll take some getting used to).

Thanks for sharing :)
 
DH and I both work outside the home. He works normal hours during the day, but I'm a nurse and work nights--so during summers I sleep in the evenings (and drive Beth to gymnastics, for one thing, during the days), while during the school year I sleep while they're at school. It works out okay.

And we too have had gymnastics forever--both girls starts when they were 3 yrs old--and started on team track at either 4 yrs (Beth) or 6 yrs (Sami). It's normal for us!

School works out great--Beth goes until 2:30, then gymnastics starts at 4 (on Mon & Tue this year) or 3:30 (on Fridays), plus she goes Saturday mornings too. She gets out at 8, so there's time afterwards for a shower and homework that didn't get done before.
 
I work nights 3 a week so I am lucky that I can schedule my work days around my daughters gym schedule. I usually only work Sundays night on the weekend so I can go to my daughters meets. I also carpool with other parents since I work at night I can take them to practice when they start at 4 or 5pm and they can drive my daughter home if I need them to. During the summer my husband drops my daughter off at the gym in the morning then I sleep a couple of hours then I go get her. It seem to work out. My gymnast is my youngest so there is some jealousy with her older sister (she does dance and swim) she complains that all's I care about is her sisters gymnastics, I do go to her most of her swim meets but I occasionally might miss one since the gym meets are usually far but the swim meets are more local. She is a typical teenager and acts like she could care less if I watch her swim while younger my younger daughter would be upset if I missed one of her meets. Younger daughter also takes gymnastics far more seriously than her sister is about swimming.
 
My DD is 11 and in Provincial level 5 training 20 hours per week. She also takes RAD ballet and a tap classs each week. We also have a younger gymmie training 12 hours per week. The 2 schedules don't always coincide. I'm a stay at home mom with a Police officer husband working 12 hour shifts and can't always guarantee that he will be home on time. The gym is about 15 minutes from home and I think my car autopilots there. I do all the driving but occasionally can carpool with a couple of families who live in my city (gym is in the next town). My 2 gymmies attend different schools so I race across town to pick everyone up, stop at home get changed grab a snck and we're off. I usually pack the girls leftover dinner so they can eat at gym and have something lighter when training is done.
I also have a DS who is a competitive swimmer. Thankfully his training is in the early pre dawn hours. Meet seasons do conflict and sometimes DH amnd i have to divide and conquer. It typically works out but I do most of the travel with the kids since DH would have a hard time prepping the girls for a gym meet and I don't want DS to feel like gymnastics is more important.
My kids must be organized and I enjoy busy so it's all good but the number of cheques I write for sports.....well you all know what I mean It's an investment!
Oh and I have 3 other children fulltime and a stepson who comes on weekends!
 
I do not work outside of the home but I do work in. As I've stated before I am a "professional stay at home mom" :D My husband works as a civilian on the air force base ( we are both prior military) and we have 5 children, 4 girls and our youngest is a boy. Our oldest who is 8 now :) is our gymnast and she is training level 7. Our 6 year old plays basketball and my now 5 year old is a swimmer.

Ladybug spends about 12 hours a week in the gym during the summer and 10 during the fall. Over this summer I have been rippping and running from one end of town to the other. 8 am gym, 8:30 am basketball, 9 am swimming, watch swimming until 10 am, go to basketball and watch until 11:30 am, go to gym and watch for the last half hour, go home, fix lunch and say man I'm good lol. When school starts back I will still be all over the place lol. They get home by 3 for a snack and off to gym. She will read to and from gym. ( Monday is her "off" no gym day as well as the weekends but does all homework on Mondays) Basketball will start back up in Nov. So from gym I'll go to swimming, basketball and back to gym to head home. Or daddy will go from gym to swimming to basketball... LOL.

Vacation - what's that !?! No, just playing lol. We are taking our family vacation the middle of nest month. Disneyland here we come!

We tell ladybug that her sisters have always supported her at her meets and practices so she will be at her sisters games regardless of practice for her or not. She wont miss meets though. Her sister wont miss their activities either though. So, if her sister has a game the same night as practice she stays at practice for as long as possible and we all go to the game as a family. When the time comes that my 5 year old swim meets gets thrown in the mix we will spit up and rotate lol.

Winters here are the hardest. If only that dang snow and ice would just stick to the sidewalks and stay off the raods lol.
 
I am self-employed out of the home (I do home daycare during the day and sew leotards in "off hours"), so I am somewhat flexible! I just don't always want to haul five extra kids along, kwim? :)

Our gym is 30 minutes from here. DH goes in to work early so he can be home early to stay with the others. Last year, practice started at 4pm, which meant I had to pick the girls up at school. I'd pick them up and we would meet dh at a nearby convenience store. The girls would change and do their homework while we waited, then dh would take the van with the little boys home and I took the girls to gym.

This year, practice is at 4:30, so the girls can ride the bus home as normal. they have enough time to change when they get home, I pack snacks/drinks for them to eat in the car, and they do their homework then too.

I was a competitive swimmer growing up, practices both morning and evening during the week and Saturday mornings. I went to "regular" school, never had lower than an A, and just managed, kwim? Sure I ate a lot of dinners alone because I had to be at swimming and my brother at hockey. My mom carpooled with other swimmers, so she drove one morning and one evening each week, and then every fifth Saturday. Honestly, I don't remember it ever being a big deal to ME - and it wasn't until I became a mom-taxi that I understood what my MOM did for me.
 
DH and I both work, but dh's company is moving alot of employees home and he's one of them. So, he can get up and go pick or drop my gymmie off at practice. I just go into work early(like 6:15am) so I can leave and do pick up. We also have an 18 yo who drops or picks little sister up as needed. Problem is she will be leaving for college in about 6 weeks, so just dh and I to do gym runs.

Gymmie will be practicing 20 hours/week during the school year---has 1 weekday free and a long Sat. practice. We did carpool with another family last year---I did pick up at the school for both girls and they would bring them home. This year it looks like they will be on slightly different practice schedules, but we should be able to make it work 3 days out of the week.

This year with older daughter away at college(sniff!), really our only activity will be gymnastics, but we have done gym and figure skating, gym and marching band. Juggling the schedules can be mind blowing!!! I've already had the talk with gymmie asking "are you sure you want to do 20 hours/week----this is what you want?" She never batted an eye and said, "well, duh!!!"
 
Well I feel much more "normal" now that I have heard how everyone works their schedules out! We are still working kinks out of our routine but for the most part I think we have it down pretty good. I just wish we had more choice in our driving directions, we are pretty much stuck on I-5 (about 22 miles out of 25 miles from home to gym) here and it can really hender getting to practice some days, but we've had good luck with it so far. I'm curious on how the winter weather will treat us this year on our commute? :eek: Luckily our school schedule allows us an hour and a half between school letting out and practice so *crossing my fingers* we should be able to pull it off :)

Thanks for everyone's replies, I love knowing we aren't the only "crazy gym-family" around!:p
 
Well I feel much more "normal" now that I have heard how everyone works their schedules out! We are still working kinks out of our routine but for the most part I think we have it down pretty good. I just wish we had more choice in our driving directions, we are pretty much stuck on I-5 (about 22 miles out of 25 miles from home to gym) here and it can really hender getting to practice some days, but we've had good luck with it so far. I'm curious on how the winter weather will treat us this year on our commute? :eek: Luckily our school schedule allows us an hour and a half between school letting out and practice so *crossing my fingers* we should be able to pull it off :)

Thanks for everyone's replies, I love knowing we aren't the only "crazy gym-family" around!:p

Western WA is typically pretty mild in the winter, so generally you should be ok. However, sometimes people out there can forget how to drive in the rain, which baffles me because you'd think with the daily drizzle, they'd be pros at driving in the rain. :rolleyes: There may be a few snow storms, but the snow doesn't usually hang around very long. So the winter shouldn't affect you *too* much. :)
 

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