Slowly but surely, we’ve become a family with a crazy after-school sports schedule. Five days a week we find ourselves preparing for some kind of sports activity. Currently, we even have two activities on Saturdays.

But it wasn’t always like that and I always thought we’d never be a family with such a busy extra-curricular schedule. It all started so innocently and calmly. At age 2, Sonny began playing soccer with Coach Mark. It was only for an hour once a week on Saturday mornings. I was pregnant with Doobie so Daddy usually took him alone and often they hung out at the park with another dad and son afterwards.

For a long time, Doobie just tagged along to Sonny’s sports activities, whether it was just a general sports class or practice and games with a team. But it was only one sport each season. It was very manageable (except that some of the seasons were across town in Brentwood or Pacific Palisades which was a bit inconvenient with what LA traffic can be).

Then it was time for Doobie to play his own sports. It started at age 3 with soccer classes once a week with Coach Milton. Then he wanted to play on teams like his big brother. Soon both boys were each on a team each season. This was when we realized how important it was to stay close to home for sports teams, otherwise we’d be spending too much time commuting. Our local recreaction center became a life saver.

Right now we’ve found ourselves in a *crazy* sports period. Not only is winter basketball still going on and each kid is on a team so we have four days of basketball commitments. But this year Sonny decided he wants to play baseball in the spring, a new sport for him and us! When we signed him up for baseball, we didn’t realize that practices would start before basketball season was over, we certainly didn’t think there would be two practices a week, and we had no idea they’d be two hours long. We were totally oblivious to the demands of baseball in this league.

What makes it manageable is that all the boys’ basketball practices and games and Sonny’s baseball practices are at our local rec center park, only a two minute drive or a very manageable bike ride or walk away. We can also drop Sonny off for the two-hour baseball practices. And luckily, Daddy’s schedule is such that we can share the responsibilities of getting the kids to and from practices. I take Doobie to basketball practice and Daddy takes Sonny; I drop Sonny off at baseball practice and Daddy picks him up on his way home from work. Games we enjoy together.

We will get a break from the craziness soon, but only a break because it will resume a few weeks later. Basketball season is coming to an end in a week. We will be adding another day of baseball when the season officially begins this weekend (another thing we didn’t know), but luckily Sonny’s baseball will be all we’ll have to attend to… until Doobie’s 5-pitch team gets going in the beginning of April! Then we’ll be back to five sports activities a week. Sigh.