Finding Balance

It is very easy to say "yes" to too many things and end up with an overly hectic schedule. On the other hand, the kids and I get a bit of cabin fever if we stay at home all day too many days in a row. That will be less likely to happen once the spring weather finally comes to stay (we had snow this morning - ugh!) because we will be taking walks to the playground, and then once summer is here we'll also be going swimming on a regular basis. In the fall we did two different homeschool co-op groups. The one that met on Thursdays in the fall for six weeks began another six week spring session a couple of weeks ago. Originally I had planned on signing up for it, but then I decided I would rather be at home on Thursday mornings. Surprisingly, Ian was the one asking when the classes were going to start up again. These decisions will be a bit easier to make once the kids (particularly Oliver) are a little older.

Nadia lately has been saying she wants to do ballet again. I said she can do ballet again, but she will have to wait until the fall to join a class, and she'll have to stop going to gymnastics. Today Ian asked me when he can start doing gymnastics again. If he wants to do gymnastics, I hope maybe Nadia will change her mind and pick gymnastics rather than ballet. Nadia did gymnastics when she was four years old, but Ian just didn't have the maturity the last time he was enrolled in a class. I didn't feel that we were getting our money's worth. Once the current gymnastics session ends (end of April), we're going to take at least a four month break from gymnastics.

I inquired about t-ball recently, and both are old enough to be on the local team. We could walk to the field where they have their games and practices, but it turns out the weeks they have games is almost identical to the weeks that Nadia has soccer. That just seems like too much to juggle at one time. I am planning on signing both of them up for soccer in the fall (U6 for Ian and U8 for Nadia), but maybe next spring they could both do t-ball instead of soccer. I'll let them decide. They took a t-ball class at the YMCA last summer so they have some concept of the sport. Neither Paul or I enjoy watching baseball, but I am trying not to let our own preferences influence the kids. I want them to try a variety of sports until they find the one or ones they like the best.