The art of list-making

Sometimes making a list (and not going crazy) is about having things on the list that you can actually cross off. Being flexible with list items is also key.

Old to-do list for today:
Get J to work super early so we can have the car and accomplish millions of errands today.
Have two different contractors at the house working on fencing and a bathroom leak.
Meet to finish Indie GoGo crowdfunding perk fulfillment.
Practice the flute.
Organize food for the week.
Do laundry.
Take a luxurious shower in preparation for extra-fancy haircut this afternoon.
Go to Half-price books.
Go to Costco. Happily chat with the children all the way through.
Pick up J from work early.
Get haircuts for all four of us.
Cry a little when S gets his tiny haircut, but in a happy “it all goes so fast” sort of way. Otherwise enjoy and “soak up every moment”, like people keep telling me to do. (Computer programmers, doctors and lawyers, do people follow you around at work to make sure you know how much you should be enjoying every moment of it? I have a hard time picturing that. But I digress…if you haven’t read Glennon’s post about this, I’d highly recommend following that link there. You could put it on your list to do later.)
Eat a calm, pleasant dinner at Aladdin’s, in which no one at all gives us a dirty look just for being there with little ones.
Get home just in time to tuck the children easily into bed at 7:30 and enjoy some down time and grown-up conversation with J before bed.

New to-do list for today (in which I have actual children, not the ones that appear occasionally like a plot point on Friends):
Coffee.
Get J to work medium early.
Help S through some big feelings about not getting to play outside RIGHT NOW.
Help E figure out how to be gracious to someone who’s having big feelings.
Figure that out myself.
Get back in time for K to look at the bathroom leak and get dripped on by nasty ceiling water, and agree to make it all better when we’re not looking (seriously, you guys, a good contactor is worth his weight in gold–or whatever is valuable now. maybe Wonderflonium.).
Keep children from knocking him off the high stool while he’s looking at the ceiling.
T will come sometime and do whatever to the fence or something.
Look at the flute in its case. Leave it there.
Break up a fight over trains.
Get crackers and have a disagreement about what to spread on them.
Something about laundry. Nevermind.
More crackers. Mediate a disagreement about who gets to hold the basket of crackers.
A nap (oh, please?).
Go to Costco. Happily chat with the children part-way through, then open something, anything, and here, put this in your mouth…
Pick J up early.
Get all four of us haircuts when zero of us have showered today. See above re: bathroom leak.
Bring our own shampoo to the hair salon so H can wash our hair (usually she doesn’t). Something about extenuating circumstances and “here’s a latte, sorry we stink.”
Get dinner wherever is the loudest and has real vegetarian food. React kindly to the well-meaning people who tell me to “soak up every moment” when S starts yelling in the middle of dinner. React kindly to the less-well-meaning people who are scandalized that I would dare to buy food in public with children while they are trying to eat dinner.
Get home and pour the children into bed.
Try to decompress and absorb ALL THE THINGS (ok, SOME OF THE THINGS) before I fall asleep on the couch in my jeans.