The Buzz...

I'm starting to get bee-like busy and it's only going to get worse.

While my wife and I are, and have been, philosophically against parental *outsourcing* and those Nazi-esque *organized activities*....given the ages of our kids, we have been forced to enroll them in numerous things.

The Prince has CCD (Sunday school), soccer twice a week, Tiger Scouts, a weekly science class, and two more question marks in drama and karate - plus maybe some instrument lessons.

And even his 4.20 year old sister is pretty booked: soccer, art class, gymnastics, dance, and perhaps karate as well.

Note that this is what our schedule looks like already BEFORE whatever events/classes we end up doing with the local homeschool co-op.

For sure, some of you more experienced parents are saying, "What are you complaining about? That's what people with kids do!"

Yep. My parents definitely ran around like decapitated chickens taxi-ing their four kids (three of whom were spoiled!) to sports, school, birthday parties, and whatnot.

But that hardly describes the family life my wife and I are striving for.

At the moment, our overbooking is a concession to the reality that our young children haven't developed their interests yet. Perhaps, hopefully, they will drop some things by the end of the year?

And, not for nothin', these activities in Metro New York are darn expensive. I think the drama (still a question mark) works out to $35 an hour while everything else is roughly $22 an hour. We even had to pay $125 or so for CCD - salvation in NYC has a sticker price!

None of these classes, except for the 1.5 hour art class, are really in the *drop-off* category. With an hour or less to kill I expect to be regularly scaring up a chair somewhere on the premises and using that time to do some work or reading with the non-participating child.

We're new in town here so, I'm expecting a lot of what-are-you-an-alien-or-something looks from the other parents when they see me outside ballet class and whatnot, poring over algebra questions with my son.

Since all of these classes (save my son's homeschool science class) are, because of still rampant government schooling, in the afternoon, our mornings will remain dedicated to the bulk of our textbook/computer home instruction.

So I'll be busy with the kids all day, and all week long.  But in addition to that...

I don't know how I'm going to do it, but I'm going to try to develop my new *education* website and I'm going to try to take on some paid math instruction. I think I'm going to try to find two 4-5 year olds whose parents want me to, well, accelerate their kids' in math. I figure if I'm going to have to pay *New York* prices for my kids' stuff, I may as well get in on the other side of that pricey transaction a little too.

How much do y'all think I could charge someone in the richest county in America to get their kid from counting to algebra in 1.5-2 years as I did with my son?