Wednesday, September 02, 2009

How long does it take to make a habit?

I'm serious, how long does it take? We are now on day two of-are you sitting down?-of being early for preschool. Organized "class" started back up after the summer break on Tuesday. They kick things off at 8:30, which doesn't really jive with our normal arrival time of 9:00ish. BabyA has been missing the whole coverage of colors, shapes, etc. (Insert guilty shuffling of feet on my part). Fortunately she has been picking things up at home from books and just common interaction; normal stuff really, but still, I pay quite nicely for this kind of of learning, so it would be nice if I could get my butt in gear to actually get her there on time. Son hasn't been missing much-but still.

So, I had made a small vow to myself, and to him, that once "school" started up again, we would be on time. Fortuitously, there was an article in my latest "Parenting" that had the "confessions of a tardy mom." To say that it resounded quite well with me would be an understatement. There were some basic ideas that I had never even contemplated before, but when I really thought about it, it made perfect sense. For example, focusing on a load time as opposed to when you need to leave to make it on time. For us, this is especially relevant, since there is always something that goes wrong as soon as we attempt to get out to the car; the dog goes on a walkabout, the kids need something special for that day and didn't tell me, I forgot diapers/milk/etc. It would help if I would get it all together the night before, which has eliminated some of these issues-well at least for the past couple of days. So far, so good.

Oh, and there is that whole thing about getting to work at a decent time too-I've been scaring my support staff! I suppose that it's about time I started acting like a grown up. I'm 38 next month, and I still feel like some goofy 20something that is still feeling her way around. I've got a mortgage, a husband, car payments, and two kids! When the hell did that happen?

Anyway, I just wanted to get up some self-congratulatory drivel. I'm usually only here when something is on its way down, and it's nice to finally feel like I've actually accomplished a silly little goal like being on time so my kids can get the most out of their opportunity to learn. I may get this whole adult thing down yet!

1 comment:

Erin said...

Excellent! I agree with the whole "load time" vs. "what is the absolute last minute we can leave and still be on time". Now if only I could put that into action...I swear that I haven't been on time for anything since we brought home K 18 months ago. Somehow two kids makes it so much harder to get out of the door!

Hope the timeliness continues!