Even though there are so many ways for the teeniest little guys to participate in group activities, we never did any of those with the girls when they were small. No music groups, or tumbling classes, or toddler sports. They were in daycare all day, and they sang and played and walked around the neighborhood and went to concerts in the park, so their enrichment opportunities were wide and varied. Plus, we weren’t ready to commit to the afternoons and evenings and weekends that a lot of those activities require.
So we held off on everything until kindergarten for both girls, but now kindergarten, round two is here, and this is what our life looks like.
This does not include girl scouts or sunday school or aerial arts or the wide variety of science, art, sport, music, computer sci, sewing, or drama camps going on in the summer months, plus the French, robotics, cooking, and rocket making after school clubs during the school year. It’s a constant balancing act of time and talent and determination, tempered with a fair amount of money sense and reality checks.
The photo above represents the current Big Four. Violin, soccer, swimming and dance. Violin is part of the school curriculum for the little one (hurray!), but now we’re trying to figure out how to continue private lessons on for the older one outside of school.
I don’t generally end a post with a comment prompt, but I’m truly curious about what your extra-c calendar looks like these days. We’ve coasted for the last six years with only one girl’s activities to manage; now we’ve got two, and if we thought the little one might not be quite as “engaged” as the older one for a few years… well, we hadn’t seen her play goalie or put on tap shoes or pick up the violin yet. Yowsers.
I have 2 daughters too. It is hard to balance it all plus have free time to relax or time for discovery of new things. Both girls are in soccer, trampoline and swimming. Top it off with homework and it does make for a busy week. They do sleep well at night though. 🙂
My kids don’t even stay awake long enough to switch off their reading lamps anymore…
My two girls are 4 (in preschool) and almost 2, and the 4 year old does swimming and is hinting at soccer when the next sign up time comes. I tend to look to the Y for activities since we’re active members, and the nice part of that is the commitment to an activity usually isn’t year-long, so it’s easy to drop something that isn’t working.
We are surrounded by lakes and ponds and streams in my area so being competent in the water as soon as possible is a priority for us. I would like my girls to take an instrument up when and if they’re interested.
We are doing swimming and dance through the Y. My oldest daughter has been doing an intensive swim camp each summer, and despite rarely swimming all year long (outside of vacations), she’s just a complete natural at it. Her swim camp coach really encouraged her to swim competitively year round, but I just honestly don’t know when we’d fit it in. We live in the city, and so many of these more ‘select’ sports are county based, expensive and time intensive. We’re compromising with swimming at the Y, although we’ll see how long it lasts. She’s sort of at the top of her class at this point. She does really enjoy it, and I think it’s a great year round sport.
And my little one has wanted to dance for ages. All my nieces are dancers, and really good ones, but I’m completely overwhelmed by the time and $$ commitment, so I was sort of hoping to stick to music and a sport. But she persisted, and we’ve signed her up for a class at the Y. She had her first class on Saturday and loved it. I love that it’s in short runs, like you said, with no recitals or costumes. If she continues with it, and truly loves it, then we’ll see where it goes.
At our Y there is dance too, though they do have a recital with costumes at the end or two times in the year if they are older. My daughter did it last year and didn’t want to do it again, which was okay by me. Very reasonably priced, but the costs still add up quickly with dance. Really fun to watch though!
One nice thing about the swimming program here is our Y actually has a competitive team that starts young, and are very well ranked state-wide, so that is an option. I remember my days of competitive swimming and all the far away meets and humid pool bleacher sitting my parents did and can’t say I’d be devastated if my kids just wanted to stay at amateur level.
I like to have a balance. But as the kids get older, it has been more difficult to keep the balance. I am afraid to say that this is the year that the whole family is only home to eat at the table together 2 times during Mon-Thur. No events on Fridays this year so far, yeah! E has hockey practice 2 times per week. This fall he is not doing soccer (I am happy about this and he is fine with it too). We are doing just fine with his schedule. ‘I’ just started gymnastics at a new location in the city and attends 2 times per week since she can compete now. We switched gyms so we can pay ~$50 per month instead of $317 per month (yes, I did not add an extra digit by mistake) at her old gym (cost to be on the team and compete – crazzzzy). ‘I’ is also doing soccer with school which is relatively low commitment and very low cost (one hour practice per week and practice is 5 minutes from the house).
What we try to do is add in some efficiencies when we can. We carpool for gymnastics – this helps! We will likely carpool for soccer too. When we drive for gymnastics, Andy stays and works out at the adult gym in the basement of the facility.
My preference is really just one sport at a time. Not the case right now for ‘I’. My preference is to add an instrument over a 2nd sport. Last year, I approached the music teachers at school and there was one who teaches violin for a couple students outside of school. We set up a schedule for 1 private lesson per week ($10 for 1/2 hour lesson – super good deal), at school immediately after the school day. So kids got home at 4pm instead of 3pm – not bad and I actually got an extra hour of work into my work day. Added effeciency there too – it worked very well. This year, just waiting to set up a day/time again once we get the sports schedules finalized. If you are looking to add violin lessons, if the price is right, I suggest having the instructor come to your house so you dont have to spend the extra time traveling.
You should feel more relaxed just reading about our schedule. Then everything changes again in spring!
I hear you.
That’s a great idea on the violin lessons at our house. I should look into that. We have a list of several people to contact. And we were hoping to arrange it with her former school instructor after school, but we couldn’t find a time after school that worked for both of us.
I’m really hoping to find a good fit – and I’d love her to have opportunities to perform and play with others as she gets older.
If anyone has a great violin instructor recommendation, I’ll take it!
Just a word about swimming: coaches will always suggest year-round. As a former year-round club swimmer who was underwater for most of my youth, I realize now that it’s a race, not a game. You overtrain for hours and hours and sacrifice your middle school and high school activities for a two-minute race. The meets are a weekend-long exercise in futility for parents and siblings. I would favor soccer as something social, challenging, athletic, strategic….oh my gosh strong opinions but I have been there! Good luck.
I can completely see that. My niece and nephew are on a swim team in the summer, and they enjoy it, but it is all consuming. I actually need to edit my writing above, because it’s not really a swim team my daughter is on because they aren’t competing. I like that she is enjoys being active, and swimming is a great way to be active and strong. It’s also (conveniently) an activity that she can participate in for an hour after school a couple of times a week while my husband works out – and that’s a real bonus, because I think we are always struggling to find a way to stay active and healthy as adults.
Great point about the soccer too – I never thought I’d be a “soccer mom”, but it has been a great sport for my oldest daughter, and I think the little one is going to really benefit from those things you listed above. She’s been sort of stubborn and non-participatory in practices, but Sunday was her first game and she just came alive. I think it clicked, the connection between practice and the game. It will be interesting to see how practice goes tonight! I’ll post pictures from her game later tonight – I got some really funny ones.
Kristin recently posted…extra curricular
In a concentrated effort to not over-schedule, the girl only takes ballet and the boy only does soccer. Both were offered scouts, but only the boy wanted to do it (which thrilled Rick to no end since he is an Eagle); so he does Scouts too. The baby is exposed to all three and is thrilled. With those few activities, we are still never all home at the same time in the evenings. 🙁
Oh, lady, we are just starting the whole activities thing too. Noah’s in swimming and soccer and those eat up four hours a week. Add in homework and unstructured play time and that’s about all we can handle right now. Chloe started tot “ymnastics” at our local park district and goes with the nanny on one of my work days…that’s the only way we can fit in a little something just for her during the general chaos of the week.
Juggle, juggle, juggle.
I am going to call you when registration opens for Shrewsbury swim team. Summer only, about 6 weeks. Kids have a lot of fun and the coach emphasizes personal development (beating your own time) as opposed to winning the meet. About 33% of the kids come from the city. Kay and Gus love it. Mimi will start this year. It’s about 13 minutes down highway 44.
This fall we have 5 soccer teams, 2 lax teams, hockey, speech, yearbook, violin, volleyball and scouts. My #1 motto for staying sane is “mama don’t watch practices or warm ups.” This allows me to run errands or get in some exercise while they are practicing whatever it is they are doing. If Gus has hockey, there is the Grant’s trail. Lax is at Creve Couer. If kids are swimming there is the River des Peres trail. Soccer = running TGP.
Yeah, I’ve often wondered how you do it. And I like your motto.
Wednesday is soccer practice for both girls. M helps coach F’s team, so he arranged for her practice to meet at same time and field as E’s, so that’s super convenient. I run, and then have dinner ready when everyone gets home.
I think that was the big draw for us at the Y – having some time to exercise or take classes while the kids are doing the same. I’m all about efficiency and multi-tasking. Otherwise I’m getting nothing done.
(I’m also getting pretty good at studying while doing laundry, calling out French vocabulary words and overseeing teeth brushing.) And if you are wondering why I’m on the computer at nearly midnight, it’s to see if I passed my last test – they usually post on Thursday, and it’s almost Thursday…