When my children were all little (babies and toddlers), I had one guiding principle: Keep everyone alive plus one. Keeping everyone alive included feeding them, diaper changes, reading books, etc. The plus one on any given day could be laundry, vacuuming, grocery store, or doctor appointments. But I just picked one. Anything else was icing. By the time baby four came along, I was also homeschooling the older ones in addition to my plus one and then we started traveling when she was a year old, so the system exploded, but I was also kind of ready for it. But those early Mom vortex years really required the simplest system. I felt productive, like I hadn’t given up on the house but I was also balancing all the babies with no outside help so plus one was all I could do.
Looking back at trying to get our 3-year-old grandson ready for Mass yesterday, I'm quite certain I came face-to-face with George the animatronic monkey. A bundle of trouble and delight, all rolled into one. Who could get angry with that belly laugh of his, and those big, blue, clear-as-marbles eyes?
“The true measure of how you’re “doing” in a day is how willing you are to respond to the thousand and one interruptions, not how far you’re getting down the list.”
I’ve been thinking about this paragraph the past few days. This sentence really makes me pause and consider my own response to interruptions!
She does, but I don’t remember if she exactly uses the term 80/20 — she does encourage you to identify core competencies and drop everything except those.
When my children were all little (babies and toddlers), I had one guiding principle: Keep everyone alive plus one. Keeping everyone alive included feeding them, diaper changes, reading books, etc. The plus one on any given day could be laundry, vacuuming, grocery store, or doctor appointments. But I just picked one. Anything else was icing. By the time baby four came along, I was also homeschooling the older ones in addition to my plus one and then we started traveling when she was a year old, so the system exploded, but I was also kind of ready for it. But those early Mom vortex years really required the simplest system. I felt productive, like I hadn’t given up on the house but I was also balancing all the babies with no outside help so plus one was all I could do.
The animatronic monkey part cracks me up!
my toddler is “peak toddler” right now… he is so cute and so sweet and so much trouble. Extremely entertaining.
Looking back at trying to get our 3-year-old grandson ready for Mass yesterday, I'm quite certain I came face-to-face with George the animatronic monkey. A bundle of trouble and delight, all rolled into one. Who could get angry with that belly laugh of his, and those big, blue, clear-as-marbles eyes?
“The true measure of how you’re “doing” in a day is how willing you are to respond to the thousand and one interruptions, not how far you’re getting down the list.”
I’ve been thinking about this paragraph the past few days. This sentence really makes me pause and consider my own response to interruptions!
So true!
That experiment sounds like a nightmare, and also I’ve apparently repressed my life with my kids at younger ages. Lol
The “80/20 rule” appears, does Vanderkam speak of this ?
She does, but I don’t remember if she exactly uses the term 80/20 — she does encourage you to identify core competencies and drop everything except those.