BM is very active and we were thinking of letting him try baseball last year and whimped out. We decided to enjoy our last few months free of schedules and such. Since he was to start kindergarten this month.

Anyway, I knew soccer was a fall sport and I did look into it, but sign ups were ages ago. Egads.

I should put the baseball/softball dates on the calendar, and soccer - as a reminder to be a little more on the ball. (unintended pun).

For the best, he seems overwhelmed with school. I discussed with dh and we decided no new activities for the year. It's only K, but it is all day and they have PE, art and even spanish. I think he has enough to occupy him. Best of all, all that is "free."

BUT I did pick up the community center catalog on a whim, while at aerobics yesterday morning. (My $2.50 aerobic/yoga class. I can't imagine life without that gem. LOVE the community center).

I had already perused it online, and didn't expect much. Will probably keep it financially low key the rest of the year and such. & considering our talks of giving BM a break.

BUT as I flipped through, dh did mention that BM has talked much about going to his karate class.

We dropped it because it was moved from evening to 4:30; a terrible time. But it was "only" $7.50 per class and was just AWESOME. He LOVED it. Now it fits in rather well as an after-school activity. So we can reconsider it.

So we decided to sign him up yesterday. The $30/month would not make or break us.

I was also pleased when I hurriedly signed up online, before month-end when it becomes an infinitely more complicated sign-up process, I was so pleased to see that they dropped all service charges for online registration. IT was only $2-$3 per class but it just annoyed me to no end.

So instead I was charged a flat $30, and life is good.

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No, not exactly free.

BUT my parents called me with an interesting proposition yesterday. They wanted to add on to our Verizon family plan. They pay $50/month for some ancient/bare bones Verizon plan and we pay $80/month for some newer Verizon family plan. We've had it forever and shop around every couple of years, but recently upgraded to a modern plan from our ancient one. It's nice to actually have minutes.

I primarily use my phone for emergencies and to talk to my spouse (free) and to KIT with out parents ("free" long distance). The rest of our family as well.

But I have gone over my minutes a few times talking to my mom WAY too much. I don't believe my parents had the benefit of talking to anyone in Verizon free since they have such an old plan. We could maybe just be misinformed...

Anyway, it only cost $20/month to add their 2 lines, and it turns out we could have different area codes, and I guess really we don't even have to be family. I am LOVING this.

We will split the bill in half, which means our bill will probably go down from $80/month to $50/month.

What a nice little surprise.

& that pretty much covers BM's karate passion, for a while.

The best part was I was trying to talk my folks into coming up for a visit, and they decided to come up last minute to get our phones set up. So they came up yesterday and we had a delightful visit. Now I just have to get used to calling my mom on her cell.

We decided to stick with our 700-minute plan since we mostly call each other anyway. My parents did not have free roaming or long distance, or any minutes for that matter, so this is quite an upgrade for them, for the same price they were paying. Anyway, I will monitor our usage and we'll give it a whirl. I don't expect we will have to upgrade our minutes, but I guess we should test it all out before I get too excited... We'll see how the month goes.

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Anyway, MIL is still very excited to pay for piano lessons for BM, but I think it is all way too much for right now. I think ideally I should have been teaching him more when he was younger. He was so bored with reading so early on (he had SUCH a letter obsession as a baby he knew the entire alphabet at 18 months and could read well enough at 2.5) I considered teaching him to read music as a way to challenge him. I figured he was certainly ready and maybe it would REALLY Stick to learn at age 4. But I was lazy and never really got around to it.

At this point he is so busy at school, it's like, what's the hurry. What's another 6 months. But with MIL's promise to foot the bill, we will get around to it while he is 5, I am sure. I started piano lessons at 6 so I know the world will not end if we wait a year... More age, maturity, and patience is probably preferred.

I think it is important for the kids to learn music, and not so sure the public schools will come through like they did for us, in these times. BUT I also don't expect BM to be much of a musician. LM is clearly the musical one. So we'll see. I have the feeling LM will fare more with music lessons and band practices, and that BM will be rather sporty. Which is interesting since no one in our family has ANY interest in sports, but we will brave those waters for our child.

LM has NO interest in letters and reading, even at 3, but he already composes his own music. So the differences in their brains is CLEAR.

I assume he has no interest in sports like the rest of us, but that is probably a pretty broad assumption for now. Having a big brother to look up to changes the playing field, as it were. He may be more interested in keeping up with big bro than seriously considering his own wants. Or maybe he will genuinely be sporty too... I just don't see it, for now.

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Well, it's the lifestyle I have been dreading. Kindergarten! School! Schedules!

It really hasn't started out so bad.

BM had friday off, and monday off of course.

There doesn't seem to be much rushing with a 8:30 start time (& a 2-minute-drive to the school).

& for now, this is the start time through 5th grade. I am rather pleased with it all.

It IS an adjustment consulting the calendar when it comes to appointments and such. & I am sure it will SUCK when it comes to vacations. I just realized BM has the most time off the beginning of April (2 weeks) and the last 2 weeks of december (rather standard). The bummer thing is those are my BUSIEST times at work. So I don't know. The only time he really seems to have off that works as far as vacation, is July/August. What a crappy/busy time to travel...

About my only gripe for now.