There has been concern in some circles about the over-scheduled lives of today's children. In the sleepy town we've recently moved from, that wasn't really an issue. Here, I've observed it, particularly among sports minded families. I didn't think it would be an issue for us.

However, my daughter does love dancing. I wanted to limit it to two classes a week until the dance school directer informed me that there was no way she could progress sufficiently with so few classes. I upped it to three. I gritted my teeth as I signed over my Saturday mornings to that third dance class. When she qualified to go on point, she begged me to add a fourth. I relented.

Besides dancing, she has an early class five days a week, attends a church youth group one day a week, and is required by her band director to play in pep band at all the home games. We usually go to church on Sundays. This means she often has something going on 7 days a week, which is something I wanted to avoid. And did I mention several hours of homework? I know that I need to have lazy days, even if she doesn't!

Today is the first Sunday we've missed church in a while. We both had a strong need to have one day where nothing is required of us. We've been lolly-gagging around, napping, playing on the computer, texting, and gorging on super-hero movies. Not exactly an enriching use of time, but I think that was the point.

She is clearly happy to have been able to catch up on sleep. I have mixed feelings about letting the demands of the rest of the week dominate to the point that we alter what we do on Sunday. Oh well. At least we kept it as a day of rest. Perhaps this is just a rationalization but I think that in the bigger picture, being tuned in and responding to our mutual need for rest is a type of 'spiritual education' too.