Kids Life Skills List

You all know me and my lists.  My newest list endeavor is something I call the "kids life skills list".  I was feeling overwhelmed by thinking about all the new things Elizabeth will be learning in the next year: getting rid of her pacifier, drinking from a sippy cup, using a fork and spoon, sleeping all the way through the night (hopefully), and on and on.

Then I thought about multiplying new skills times four kids, and all of a sudden I had too many things going on in my head.

So I stopped and made a list for each child.  Now instead of having everything in my head, even the things that we aren't working on right now, I can just focus on the next thing.  This is inspired a little bit by David Allen's Getting Things Done, where the point is to get everything out of your head and into your note-taking system, and then just dealing with things as you need to.  I don't use the system, but I think that this is a helpful way to glean an idea from it.

Jonah and Matthew are learning how to wash their own laundry.  Hannah is working on getting dressed by herself.  Elizabeth is just about ready to move on from learning to use a sippy cup to the next thing, which will probably be using a spoon.  (We already got rid of the pacifier.)

Because we're working on just one thing, I can focus a lot more.  I know we will eventually get to everything on the list, and if I think of new life skills I want the kids to learn, I just add them to the list and keep working on what we're working on now.