Our daughter is 3.5 and she is taking ballet and music -- one is on Sun am, one is Sat am. Saturday my parents take her -- which is a really nice treat, as DH and I hit the gym and brunch, it's our weekly date. But I'm finding that already, while she is very young, our family time is becoming limited on weekends with her activities and I am wondering about everyone else.

How many activities are your kids involved in and how old are they?
Are these after school/pre-school or on weekends?
How do you juggle the scheduling/getting them there? Do you try to limit these so that you have some family time as well?

All my kids are in activities. Sorry all but my youngest, who is 2. He did have swiming over the summer. Sports, and groups (girl scouts, boy scouts, FFA, 4H, book clubs, band, etc etc.) This is our biggest challenge. It has gotten easier I have 2 soon to be 3 teens that drive. So the bad part is choosing where mom and dad go. We go to all home games, we alternate practices, and travel games we have to alternate. Thank goodness for car pooling. We try really hard to make sure no one feels they arent being cheered on enough. So far it has been ok. The real struggle is the schedules and transportation. Where is Mary Poppins and that wonderful umbrella?!

My kids are 11 and 7 years old. Currently the 7 year old isn't in any activities. The 11 year old is in band now and has one band practice a week immediately after school. I have signed them up for evening activities in the past and it just absolutely wears them out so I won't do evening activities during the school year anymore.

In the summer they get to sign up for sports like baseball and my daughter went away to horse camp for a week. During the school year their focus is on school. I agree that having scheduled activities on weekends can take away from family time. It also takes away from time with friends as that is when they want to have sleep-overs, go visit their cousins or we take family roadtrips up to the north shore.

If they were really hooked on a sport/activity I would absolutely let them participate but they aren't so I don't push it. Especially knowing how much it wears them out.

About a month ago we went to check out a swim school after I got off of work one day. When we left my kids asked me to please not sign them up until summer.

DS #1, who is 12, is currently in basketball and has baseball camp on Sunday's. Starting soon he will be playing baseball for both his school and for little league. He is also in choir at school and 4H. The fall brings football.

DS#2, who is 5, will start little league soon. He played soccer in the fall but has decided he wants to try football and basketball next year. He is also in 4H.

We are lucky to have a good support team that can help us take them to practice or a game in a pinch. We split up if their games or practices are at the same time so that one parent is always there.

My daughter is only 15 months, but I try to take her out and about to a lot of things. Since I'm a WAHM and she's not a daycare kiddo, I know she's missing out on that socialization, so that's why we try to do stuff at least three days a week. She has playgroup and a toddler music-play class, and we go to the library too. Can't wait for summer swimming.

my step-daughter does gymnastics one night a week and she's in girl scouts which meets every other week and she goes to the wednesday night activity at church most weeks. she did cheerleading for a few weeks with a church group, she wanted to keep doing it be the games are on Saturdays - every Saturday - for however many weeks the "season" lasts. her mom vetoed her doing cheerleading because she didn't want to commit to driving her to it or missing almost half their time with her to let us keep her friday night and take her to the saturday game and then deliver her to her mom. which basically means any and all weekend activities are out and she has to do during the week activities if she wants to do any.

My youngest (3.5) is cool with just daycare & preschool.

The oldest (10) is only in baseball outside of school (~Feb-Oct) and has running club and after-school academic help one night per week each during school. DH has thrown out the idea of having his buddy give him private motocross lessons, but for now he just rides his dirtbike for fun.

That's about all we have time for. I don't know how families with multiple school-age kids can run in so many different directions (Holly Jones, you must be super-organized).