Somebody Stop Me Before I Sign Again

You would think at forty-eight, I'd know something.

But just as crocuses pop out of the ground in the spring, I sign up my kids for activities and so the mad scramble to get from point A to point B begins anew.  It always seems so innocent before we begin.   The 7th grader wants to run track. I'm thinking, that's great.  Her older brother runs track.  

The 3rd grader wants to do soccer.  I'm thinking, awesome, she didn't get to do basketball because they didn't have enough people to field a team so she'll love it.  

I've only signed up two people.  Given my past track record, where I signed up three for basketball,one for singing lessons, and three others for ballet, I thought "I've matured. I've come to know how much I can manage. I no longer overstuff the crust of our lives with cheesy after school and weekend activities."  It's just two kids. How bad could it be?   Well... track practice for the 7th grader is on Wednesday, the same day as CCD which used to be on Tuesday but I had to switch it to Wednesday because soccer practice is at the same time CCD would be on Tuesday.  What was a one trip out one trip back day, is now a game of car mom ping-pong.  

Saturday...son gets bus ride to track meets most times, but not always.  Daughter gets no rides to track meets.  They are everywhere.   I also forgot about band, which has a concert on Sunday in Downtown DC.  

This sort of mad schedule doesn't include the new wrinkle of not having a machine that can take all of us, or the two months to go reality of our oldest needing to get from his work (at a school) back to the campus (for a class) and then back to work in the middle of the day, twice a week.  It's a class he can't miss, but which requires either the invention of a teleportation device, mutant flying powers or me driving over after the kids are put on the bus, to take him to the campus from school and wait around for an hour and then back again before home.  I'm thinking of lacing his birthday cake with radioactive waste and rooting for the mutant powers.  

So I'm adopting a new policy.  I have ten kids.  Each of you get a month long activity.  Two months we get off.  If you don't like the sport allocated to your 30 month period....have some cake.   If you grow wings and can get yourself from point A to point B, I'll sign you up.