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"My kids aren&amp;#039;t overscheduled. At least, that&amp;#039;s what I tell myself. Compared to other kids at their school, they don&amp;#039;t have quite as many activities lined up. In fact, they even have afternoons when they can just come home and play, which is practically unheard of these days. Then how come I feel overwhelmed by our family calendar? Because it&amp;#039;s fall, that&amp;#039;s why. My mother-in-law asked me if the boys could stay at her house this weekend. &amp;quot;Sure! I chortled. &amp;quot;This year, they have no weekend soccer games!&amp;quot; So we made plans for her to pick them up after school on Friday. Then I looked at our calendar. They have a Cub Scouts pack meeting on Friday night after my third grader&amp;#039;s den meeting. And on the next two Friday nights, they have soccer games. In fact, the coming weekends are filled with birthday parties, a baptism and a Cub Scouts picnic. How did that happen? As it is, they&amp;#039;ve got piano lessons once a week, soccer games through early November, Cub Scouts meetings several times a month year-round, and yet, silly me, I asked them if they&amp;#039;d like to sign up for the after-school enrichment program. This means that twice a week for 10 weeks, I have to pick one kid up at &amp;quot;Chess Masters&amp;quot; and the other at &amp;quot;Wanna Be an Architect?&amp;quot; classes after school. What was I thinking? He&amp;#039;s 10. If he wants to be an architect, he can take classes in college \u2013 where I don&amp;#039;t have to pick him up after class. I must have suppressed my memory of past autumns, or I would have recalled that my kids&amp;#039; busy calendars means I get busier carting them to and from activities, hunting down clean soccer socks, trying to locate and purchase new Scouts neckerchiefs before their uniform inspection, hounding them to practice the piano and now, remembering to pick them up after school rather than strolling to the school bus stop at the corner. Phew! Luckily, my mother-in-law said she&amp;#039;d pick the boys up Saturday morning and keep them until Sunday evening. That gives me a good 36 hours to relax. And I&amp;#039;ll need it, too, because next week looks really busy. How did that happen? "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.goodhousekeeping.com/life/parenting/a2176/good-grief-092607/?src=shelter_footer>