How did we come to this pass?
Just a couple of years back, our life was leisurely, snubnose was 4 and a very mature 4 at that. As a family, we were all starting to relax and chill out…and then Piglet stormed into our life, and things have gone back to mad crazy busy.
To give ourselves a little breathing space, we enrolled snubnose in art class. It was (still is) a one class a week affair, and it allowed one of us the pleasure of sleeping in on a saturday morning. And, the snubnose took to it like a duck to water. Happy times all around.
But then a year later, she started getting restless. Mama, I want ballet. I put her off for a year (the timing and the location of the class was inconvenient), but she continued to insist and so I inevitably gave way.
Art and ballet…still manageable. I needed to do a little rescheduling of my work day, but seeing her enthusiasm, I was willing to go for it.
But then…the demands continued, and again I gave in…piano classes entered the picture, and now last month, the snubnose boldly walked up and enrolled herself in a taekwondo class!
In her new taekwondo dress
The piano and taekwondo classes are in my neighborhood. There’s no pick up/drop involved and so I didn’t kick up too much of a fuss.
But then as the end of the year approaches, I see the problem with this laid back approach I have taken with the snubnose’s enthusiasms.
End of the year means showing off time, which means school annual day rehearsals, ballet performance rehearsals, and piano exams. And organizing her schedule is driving me nuts.
Every day I field calls from art teacher, ballet teacher, piano teacher…all of them want extra slots so that they can catch up. Apart from organizing her schedule and making sure she gets to where she needs to be, I also end up juggling finances. Snubnose missed two taekwondo classes last month (trainers away because of Diwali), OK, make a note to make the appropriate deduction in fee payment to her teacher. Multiply this effort with four different teachers all charging a different rate for their classes, and I can be excused for putting my foot down extremely firmly (I may have actually stomped childishly), when snubnose suggested that Bharatnatyam or Kathak would also be very nice.
No, snubnose. No more new classes for you!
Next month I have a short work trip and will be away from home for about 10 days, and so I started explaining this routine to my husband who snapped irritably at me. He being the manager that he is has asked me to create an excel spreadsheet with all the class slots and payment details.
And this is what I am doing now. It’s approaching midnight and I am doing a brain dump listing out all details so that he can manage without me in December. It’s a really tough task as doing this spreadsheet, I see there are so many time overlaps to be resolved and December is the busiest month. Poor K.
Gah, snubnose, do you have to enroll yourself in absolutely everything that comes your way?
To other mums, how do you know when your child is overscheduled? I’d really like her to do a bit less, but she’s a pretty driven child and is equally enthusiastic about all her classes. And I have a problem saying No
What a fix we are in now.
