Plan for the future!
I am an inveterate listmaker. I don’t mean just grocery lists or to-do lists, although I certainly make those on a regular basis. I make lists of vacations I want to take, rooms I need to clean, cards I need to send, and anything else that needs doing. I will even put “make a list” on my list, so I have something to immediately cross off when I’m done with the list. So it is probably no surprise to those who know me that for each summer vacation during my sons’ school years, I made daily checklists of things I wanted them to accomplish during the summer. I didn’t want them to just play video games all day, so each summer I would type up personalized lists and laminate them so the boys could check off their tasks each day. Each list had daily activities–things like read for at least 30 minutes, practice piano, ride your bike, make your bed–and a category called “non-daily items to accomplish,” with bigger projects like “invent a game” or “complete summer math book.” These lists had limited effectiveness, but they were the impetus for a lot of good dinner conversations.
Today, as I am thinking about my oldest son’s impending college graduation next month, I was reminded of the summer of 2016. That year, tongue firmly in cheek, Reilly (then age 13) made his own list partway through the summer, revised to suit his whims: eat butter, fly the space shuttle to Jupiter, avoid radiation sickness, calculus, get pilot’s license, discover new particle, and vanquish enemies. His non-daily items to accomplish wre herglbergl (that may be some language I don’t speak but may be gibberish), float in spaaace (sic), and do a barrel roll. Reilly provided me with a copy of this list one day on my return from work, and I am pleased to note that except for “fly the space shuttle to Jupiter” and “float in spaaace” he accomplished everything on the list! (At least, he checked them off.)
Three weeks from now, Reilly will be graduated from Purdue University with a degree in aeronautical and astronautical engineering. So perhaps the space-related items aren’t too far behind.
