I have a confession to make. (Don't judge me before you hear me out!) I am a procrastinator. I know. You are horrified to hear such a thing from me but it is true. If I am anything with you, it is honest. Therefore, I felt it was time to come clean. (I should have told you weeks ago. I realize that.)

It seems I tend to be eternally late with everything. (Christmas cards should go out before the 24th of December?! Really?) In fact, I am terrible with deadlines. (Shhh! Do not tell my editor.) I count on my friends, co-workers and Google Calendar to remind me when I have an upcoming appointment, project or deadline.

It was always a strike against me in school. Yes, I was the student who waited until the last minute to get her work done. Thankfully, I was able to maintain an A average in spite of my irresponsibility. Besides, if I missed a deadline, I was the only one who suffered back then. To be honest, the adrenaline rush of making sure I met the deadline usually resulted in better work and more concentration on the project.

The neighborhood playground is about a ten minute walk from my house. In honor of the glorious spring weather, the kids and I trooped over to fulfill the daily wear-them-out requirement. Across the street are about a dozen townhouses, houses we briefly considered when we were looking to buy, and every time we go to the playground I think, "Gee, if we lived HERE I'd only have to walk across the STREET."

I know, right? Could I BE more lazy?

We ended up at the playground this morning only after a lengthy argument with myself, wherein I debated the pros and cons of joining some playgroup moms for a picnic at the beach. Pros: friends! sunny weather! an endless sandbox of fun only twenty minutes away! Cons: Packing clothes. Packing lunch. Packing kids and assorted accessories into the car. Twenty whole minutes away. Laziness totally won out, as it does nearly every time.

I’d actually been excited for spring break. To have both kids home with me all day for a full week sounded wonderful. We would do activities. We would visit venues of fun. We would bask in the sunshine that I was willing forth with powers of great will and weather manipulation. Life would be a dream and a song. I would even stop barfing in honor of the festivities.

It didn’t quite work out that way.

On Monday we went to the park with some friends where we had fun in the sun, even applied sunscreen whether we needed it or not. Then I twisted my ankle and spent two days lying flat on my back. By Tuesday or Wednesday I was knocked out with an awful head and chest cold that lingers even now. And I was still throwing up.

Growing up my mom always said to me, “Never say never!” It used to make me a bit crazy seeing as “to never say never” involves saying never. It was, however, a mantra in our house because as a teenager I was huge on using the word “never” in many of my declarations.

“I will never get married before I have a career!” (I was married at age 20 while still in college.)

“I will never tell my kids that they cannot do something just because I said so!” (I actually have a magnet on my refrigerator that says “Because I am the Mom and I said so!”)

“I will never force my kids to eat something they don’t like just because it is good for them!” (Come on! That one was easy to break. Just ask my kids.)

I’ve decided to institute a family-wide ban on competitive sports, effective from now until there’s a major increase in poise and maturity in this household. Oh, the kids are fine. Laylee likes to remind me, “It’s just a game. You can choose to be happy, Mom. Stop stressing out.”

I’m the one with the problem. I work with a group of teenage girls at church, who recently went through a basketball tournament with some other congregations from surrounding towns. The girls are all sweet, many of them friends with their opponents, and they generally play a fairly civilized game.

When they made it into the semi-finals, I took Laylee to watch them play. It was a great game, the teams evenly matched, the score always close. Something in me sort of snapped. I wanted them to succeed and feel good about themselves. I wanted the fouls to be called fairly. If I didn’t think the refs were being impartial, it took every ounce of my self-control to avoid jumping from my seat and voicing my displeasure.