yesterday’s project

in case you didn’t know, i’m a spontaneous person. most of the time, i complain about this little aspect of my personality, because it’s downside is that i’m a BAD planner. committing to do something more than about an hour in advance has a tendency to give me the willies. i’m a last minute kinda person, like to do things when the pressure’s on. partly, this is because i’m just a bad procrastinator (actually, i think i’m a pretty good procrastinator). papers, for example, were always written at the last minute, the night before they were due – and i always got good grades on them (case in point – i’m good at procrastinating). packing is a slightly different example, but similar. if i’m going on a trip, i CANNOT pack for it until the night before i leave. i can mentally pack prior to that, but actually putting stuff in the suitcase any sooner than that, gives me the heebie jeebies and kind of makes me start to panic. first of all, it’s just a given that most of the clothes i want to take are being washed right then, and can’t be packed until they’re out of the dryer. secondly, i can’t pack anything because i might need it as soon as it’s in the suitcase, and then i’d have to unpack it, which would totally negate the process of packing it in the first place, so why bother? and then you can’t pack stuff like toiletries, because you’re going to need them the next morning before you leave… yeah, i know. i have issues. my final example can only be explained as rebellion. something inside me outright rebels when i have things i HAVE to do. if i try to enforce a schedule on myself for housework, i get less cleaning done then ever. something about knowing that i’m supposed to be doing it, causes me a to have a major resistance to it. i know, it’s ridiculous!

so anyway, aside from the negative aspect of being bad at planning, and resistant to routine, spontaneity can have an upside too. it’s the ‘bee in my bonnet’ experience. i’ll suddenly get inspired to do something, and then there’s no stopping me. one of those, ‘wow this shower is dirty. i should clean it.’ moments. sadly, i don’t have nearly enough of those moments or my house would be in a lot better shape! ;)

okay, enough therapy.

this is what i did yesterday:

all my preschool stuff has been in the garage since i quit teaching before micah was born. i’d been meaning to get out the calendar (particularly for layla) for awhile, but of course, it just never happened. but then, yesterday, layla asked me a question, and i was trying to explain when friday was, and she wanted to know if it was ‘the day after this day’ (she still can’t figure out what ‘tomorrow’ means), and suddenly that bee flew into my bonnet! so i got out all the calendar stuff, sorted the numbers (there are different ones for almost every month – some are mine, some i inherited from my mother), cleared a spot on the wall, and layla and micah helped me put everything up.

i decided i need some sort of signs to help layla understand the concept of words like ‘today’, ‘tomorrow’, and ‘yesterday’, so i decided to print some that we could stick on the calendar and move daily. then i figured that since i was making those, i should make labels for major holidays and birthdays as well. as it turned out, i probably made 30 or 40 labels, covered them with contact paper and cut them all out. it was actually really fun! i also got out my weather chart so we can keep track of the weather (you know, because graphing is always a good time!).

layla was really excited about it, and so far, micah has been able to resist the temptation to yank them all off, although he thinks it’s really fun to drive his monster truck over the dates. oh well.