School has started for both girls. Zoe is in first grade. Mia is in Pre-K. Along with school, come the fall activities. Here are the girls last Saturday at their first soccer games. Mia has a half hour of practice before a half hour scrimmage. Zoe practices on Mondays and plays on Saturdays.

Last fall, as Zoe was entering kindergarten, and Mia was moving up to a preschool classroom, and we were preparing to welcome our first au pair, we kept activities to a minimum. Mia had occupational therapy once a week. Zoe joined the cast of her school play in October. And, we waited until November to add swimming and skating lessons.

I wasn’t as careful this fall. Both girls have been asking to play soccer and to try gymnastics. I agreed to both. Zoe swims well enough now that I’ve decided she can continue with swimming lessons in summer camps unless she wants to swim instead of some other activity during the school year. Mia is still learning to swim independently and it’s very therapeutic for her to be in the water so she has swimming lessons once a week.

Activities started last week. Here’s our crazy schedule on top of school:

• Monday evening: Zoe’s U8 soccer practice
• Tuesday early afternoon: Mia’s swimming lesson
• Wednesday right after Zoe’s school: Gymnastics for both girls
• Friday morning: Mia’s occupational therapy
• Saturday: Both girls have soccer at various times that sometimes conflict
• Sunday morning: Hebrew School for Zoe

I expect that Zoe will want to participate again in her school’s bilingual musical, with rehearsals roughly every other Thursday starting in October and going into February.

Zoe wants to play ice hockey. It’s hard for me to resist this one as I played from age eight through college, and more occasionally after that. It’s possible she’ll start hockey in late November after soccer season is finished. She could have started in September but it felt like too much with soccer being brand new. Last spring, Zoe also took an art class which she loved. She’s asked about that again too and I said not now.

I could not possibly do this level of activities without the assistance of our au pair who helps with gear and transportation and snacks. We’re getting ready to transition our second au pair in less than three weeks. I have created a detailed schedule and Google Map with the locations of the girls’ schools and all these activities for she will have to learn fast how to help transport them to most of their weekday activities.

For Mia, the structured activities are definitely therapeutic. Swimming, soccer, gymnastics will all help with balance and coordination. Having some variety is good. I just need to see how the fall goes and find out if we have enough time to integrate all the variety.

I struggle with finding the balance. Is this too much? I want my kids to have down time too. I felt a little better as I sorted through pictures for this post and found plenty of them playing outside in unstructured ways in the past few weeks. I hope we don’t lose that.

Making mud pies

Hiking through the woods

Riding bikes through the neighborhood

Mia just running at the park!