Family Snippets - 9. Time Management

School holidays have arrived. The time when parents have to not only manage to do everything they normally do, but also entertain a tribe of adorable, hyper-active, loving, demanding kids.

As with all parents, we tell ourselves it is only two weeks until Colin goes back to school for term four. I, at least, get to go to work during the week, but Janine is only working two days a week. Or, more accurately, she earns money working two days a week, and earns hugs, kisses and grey hairs working the other days.

Some inspirational person on talk-back radio came up with a brilliant idea last school holidays: nominate each day as a particular person’s day, and that person gets to decide what’s done on that day. We tried it during the holidays between terms two and three, and it worked quite well. The boys would endure doing other things with the expectation that their day would be coming soon.

“Mummy, I want one of those,” Colin announced yesterday.

Janine and I looked to see where he was pointing. It was the calendar we had on the wall.

“What is it you want?” Janine asked politely. From bitter experience, we’ve learnt not to jump to the obvious conclusion.

“I want one of those in my room, so I can mark off the days until my day,” Colin explained.

For once, it was the obvious thing he was after. We didn’t have a spare calendar floating around, and we’d need two anyway, as Andrew was almost certain to want one, too. However, we have a computer. There had to be a calendar somewhere on it, and if there wasn’t I could make one.

Finding one, we printed off the month of September. Right on cue, Andrew piped up.

“I want one, too!”

“Sure, Andrew. We’ll print one for you now,” I said with a smile.

While the second copy was printing, a crisis developed.

“This isn’t what I want!” Colin stated forcibly.

“But look,” Janine pointed out, trying to placate him, “it has the month across the top and all the days marked.”

Colin looked at the printout and then up at the calendar on the wall.

“But what about all those other things? They aren’t on this one.”

The light dawned. To a six-year-old, a calendar is not just a month and days. It is everything else as well.

“But those are Mummy’s things. This one is telling me when I need to get a haircut. That one is telling me when I need to have the horses’ feet trimmed,” she explained patiently. “Why don’t you put on yours the things that you will be doing?”

Colin was happy with this idea and he and Andrew disappeared into their bedroom. Colin reappeared seconds later.

“We need something to stick it up on the wall,” Colin announced, managing to imply that both of his parents were sadly lacking for not having anticipated that fact.

Janine, in the meantime, had been looking for the Blu-tack so we could do exactly that. She joined the boys in their bedroom.

A couple of minutes later, she came out and pinned me down with her eyes.

“We need you to print out October as well.”

“Why?” I asked as I headed towards the computer.

“Colin wants to put down the date when he goes back to school, which is in October.”

“Okay,” I replied. “I’ll print off two copies.”

With a nod of her head, she returned to the boys’ bedroom.

When I brought the extra printouts into their room, Colin was interrogating Janine.

“Now, which is my day again?”

“Daddy has Sunday, you have Monday, Andrew has Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday you go to Nanny’s, Thursday is Mummy’s day, and Saturday is swimming,” Janine explained patiently.

What Janine failed to mention was that “Daddy’s day” is also the day when I get told about all the other things that need to be done. My ability to state what I want to do on that day is severely limited. The apologetic smile Janine gave me when she’d finished told me she knew the reality.

“Daddy, can we go to the swimming-pool-without-teachers on your day?” Andrew asked, with the directness we’ve grown to know and, usually, love.

The boys have a clear distinction in their minds between the swimming pool where they have their lessons on Saturday, the swimming-pool-with-teachers, and the other pool they go to. One they are made to go to, the other is for fun. They normally enjoy their lessons, once they get there, but sometimes it is a chore to get them ready.

“We’ll see, Andrew. It’s Daddy’s day and it’ll be my decision,” I replied, conveniently failing to explain the real situation.

“What are you going to do on your day?” I asked him.

“Toy shopping,” he replied firmly.

It’s wonderful that at the tender age of four he has a firm grasp on his priorities.