An extra day

So I was dealing with the boys yesterday trying to get them, yet again, the importance of everyone in the family pulling their own weight. So much of that for them is in terms of doing their schoolwork promptly and with effort. To bring home a point, I started looking at how much time their extracurricular activities take out of the week and is time that I am not spending on other things. This is what we came up with:

Monday - 4 hrs between Kuk Sool Wan and therapy
Tuesday - 5 hrs between bowling, Young Actors Workshop, and 2 different soccer practices (that's if I don't have to pick up Matthew when his ends)
Wednesday - 2hrs for Kuk Sool Wan
Thursday - 4hrs between Park Day and soccer practice
Friday - 1hr for gymnastics
Saturday - 2hrs for soccer game

Add that all up and it comes to 18hrs per week minimum that we are out and about doing other stuff. We usually have 1-2 field trips per month plus errands and other things that come up for various things. Poor Nico gets to tag along on the bowling (which is adorable) and has gymnastics and therapy but really, very little for him and I always feel bad that he doesn't get to do much that is geared up for him. I'm planning on getting him and Jonathan into swimming and signing him up for Zoo classes once soccer is over but really, we basically already spend one full waking day out of the house every week. When I saw that, I realized "duh, no wonder I can never seem to catch up on anything around here!" I do think that helped to emphasis to the older boys exactly how much time is spent on things they enjoy and hopefully it brought the point home.

I do have to say tho, I look at that and wonder what the heck people are thinking when they ask me about "socialization". I always tell them that homeschooling would be soooo much easier if we were ever home to actually do school! LOL We are too busy using the world as our classroom some days to actually crack open a text book.

But you know what? I think it's the best thing and I'm learning just as much as my boys are and I do think we are all the better for it. Now if we were just home a little more often so I could take care of those other pesky matters...LOL