It was last August, and finally, the day arrived that we were dreading. I hobbled over to my desk lugging with me the tools that I needed for the job:
Giant Calendar: Check
Multi-Colored Markers: Check
3”x5”Cards: Check
Mountain of Flyers and Brochures: Check
Map of the City: Check
Cup of Coffee: Check –with a pot waiting for us to take refills
We were finally ready…to work out our kids’extra-curricular schedule for the upcoming school year. My wife and I divided the activities up, and made one pile for our son, another for our daughter. This made it more manageable since with two smaller piles we could now see each other from across the desk –the tops of our heads anyway.
I got the “son” pile. Great, I am much more comfortable trying to schedule his hockey, soccer, karate, swimming, tutoring, baseball, guitar, tennis, computers, drama, and, of course, art club (he once drew a picture in Kindergarten that we still keep on the fridge. How can we deny his gift?). My wife got the “daughter” pile with dance, gymnastics, cooking lessons, swimming, piano, babysitting club, tutoring, school play, Tae Kwon Do, and, of course, Italian (I’m not sure why we send her to this since we are not Italian!).
Our first draft didn’t work out too well. Dinner was now scheduled for midnight every night, and the only date night that my wife and I had was at 2:30-3:00 AM on Wednesday mornings. The only thing that we had accomplished by that point, is that we realized that we needed a bigger table and we had to brew another pot of coffee.
We called in the grandparents to help out with the kids as we entered our fourth hour of plotting. As we now sat at the dining room table, my mom came over and asked what we were doing. I explained to her that we had to fill out the kids’ programming for the year before everything filled up and we lost out.
“Why do they need so many?”she asked. “Because we have to make sure that our kids have every opportunity” I responded while rolling my eyes. “When will they do their homework?” she asked. “Ummm…right in here” I replied while grabbing my white-out to make room on the calendar for homework. She followed up with several more frustrating questions: “What about sleep?”, “When will they relax?”, “Have you even asked them if they enjoy being so busy?” She sure had some interesting questions, but we had no time for that right now.
Finally, she asked me if our kids were often tired and cranky during the school year. If I wondered why they weren’t doing as well in school as I knew they should be doing. If they ever spent any time hanging out with their school friends. “Maybe, just maybe” she said, “They need a little less time being programmed, and a little more time being themselves”.
