New Balance

And no I am not talking about the brand of running shoes but about the new balance I am trying to strike in my life with both kids in school 5 days a week.

But first, an update on the dance debate since so many of you took the time to write such thoughtful comments. (THANKS!) To answer some questions, the one activity at a time rule was basically just something I had loosely planned on, not anything that I had ever sat down and discussed with the kids. Jake has never expressed interest in doing anything other than soccer and baseball, which do not conflict so we have never denied him the chance to do any activity he was interested in. After Jadyn did the two classes last week, I asked her if she could only pick one, which would she chose and she actually chose hip-hop over ballet. This is not surprising to me because it is a) new to her and b) very upbeat. I don't really want her to give up on ballet as long as she enjoys it because should she decide to pursue dance further down the line, ballet is going to give her the technical foundation she will need. As for her sticking to commitments, she knows she has committed to her soccer team and has every intention of seeing that through. As far as ballet or hip-hop is concerned, those are paid on a monthly basis so if we let her do both classes for a month and it is too much, her commitment would only be for that month. Finally, if the class was not going to fit into our family's schedule, I never would have let her observe or participate in it in the first place. It just so happens that it does fit into our schedule fairly well as long as she has the energy to take back-to-back classes, which she proved at least last week that she could.

It is for those reasons, that after speaking to her again, Joe and I decided to let her add hip-hop to her existing schedule. She knows that if at any time the addition starts to affect school, sleep, behavior or other activities, she will have to drop the class and revisit adding it again once soccer is completely over. We shall see how it goes.

As for me, I am focusing on getting as much accomplished as possible while the kids are school and Joe is at work, particularly work files, cleaning, laundry, working out, errands and appointments. The more I get done while they are gone, the less time I have to do it while they are home, which should give me more quality time with the family. Of course, I will still probably almost always have work on the weekends but if I can free up the weeknights and do more of the cleaning and laundry during the week, that extra time will add up. So while I thought I wasn't going to have enough to do, when I really looked at my priorities, I found I have MORE than enough to keep me busy and that doesn't even include the days I volunteer in their classrooms, which I can't wait to start doing.

So for now it's back to work!