My time is coming

I've probably ranted about this before, and maybe even in this space, but this topic has been on my mind lately so I thought I would put some rambling thoughts to screen.  Kid's schedules are nuts!  I quite often hear of parents shuttling kids to and from places after school, before school, Saturday, Sunday, and almost any time in between.  It seems to me that some how we've equated being busy with being successful.  I also wonder how many of the activities I see kids in are truly for the kids or do mom and dad push too much.  Is there something wrong with just being at home for a night with nothing to do but be a kid?  Does an unscheduled day, or even hour, somehow mean we're not living up to our full potential?  Good golly I hope not.
I titled this post "my time is coming" because right now my boys are in 2nd grade and preschool.  Only one is involved in any extracurricular sports so we're not running around like mad...yet.  But, even our schedule gets crazy when you throw in some church stuff and community activities and we don't even have to worry about sports, band, boy scouts, FFA, etc.  What am I going to do when the time comes?  Will I just cram as much as I can into the kids' schedule because they want to do all that?  Will I just assume that busy equals good?  Will I have the strength to say no?  As I'm writing it occurs to me I'm not including Tracy in any of these decisions, and she'll certainly be involved.
I truly hope I can find time to let my boys just be boys and kids.  I know for myself that if I have a schedule that is continually packed it wears me down.  I know that I need a night or two to just be home with the family.  There are enough times already were I feel we don't have enough of those nights and as a family we're barely getting started in the rat race.  Is it no wonder families seem to struggle a little bit more now because they barely have time to see each other!  I guess my question is where has the balance gone, and can you find a way to come back into balance.
I truly believe it is important to have time together as a family to just be.  I don't know if that is your belief or not, but if you're constantly running to the next thing how do you get a chance to just sit down and hang out?  Do you get a chance to sit down as a family and have a meal together...more then twice a week?  Maybe I'm alone in these thoughts and most people believe you have to have the hectic lifestyle, but I don't.  I do not want you to misunderstand me...sports are good....band is good....community activities are good....church activities are good...FFA, Boy and Girl Scouts...and other organizations are good, but we can't be all things all the time.  That's were balance comes into play.  I mean even God rested.  Jesus knew he had to take time out to be alone and get away from it all.  If God and Jesus knew they couldn't handle busyness all the time how do we think we can schedule our lives full and get away with it?  I might be shouting at a wall here, and heck in 2 or 3 years my family might be over scheduled too, but I sure hope we can say no...and still find time to just be at home for a night or two, or God forbid a whole day, without having to be somewhere.  I don't think you can put a price on that time together because it's not the same togetherness as running in the car to the next event.  It is ok to have nothing to do for awhile.  It is ok to just be and not have to rush to the next thing.  Family time, time to just be together, is something I think this world could use a lot more of, and if we can't find time to just be together then maybe, just maybe we're a little too busy.