To Do Lists

Life has been so crazy this week that I haven't even had time to work on to do lists.

Eamon and I are very much list people. We think better and get more done when we have lists. Malcolm is not. Lists seem to stress him out. Routines work much better for him. So on our first snow day, I made a to do list for each of us. Eamon saw it and immediately got to work, from getting dressed to doing the dishes. He was my helper all morning long; it was amazing how motivated he was to finish that checklist.

Malcolm took his time going through his normal routine: getting dressed, brushing his teeth, singing and playing along the way. But he was ready to do his part of the dishes by the time Eamon was done. He washed, I rinsed, and we talked and sang at a leisurely pace. But when I said it was time to get ready for lunch, he had paper plates, chips, and fruit out, and poured the water. No checklist needed.

Even though I got interrupted through out the day, I managed to get pretty much everything done on my checklist. And a few other things too. I even practiced voice, to help inspire the boys to practice their music.

It causes me to wonder at how God made us each so different. The things we do to survive and the things we do to thrive are different from person to person. It also fills me with great satisfaction to see both of the boys develop so differently, but so completely them, and so completely outside of the boxes I want to put them in. I could say Eamon is a typical artist - dreamy, distracted, making connections all the time - but it would completely over look his love for order, math, science and the patterns he finds there. Or Malcolm is an outside-of-the-box creative - always coming up with some story or saying or song from out of nowhere - but he is the one who will put his shoes in a row, make sure his clothes are in the laundry, and doing whatever he can to make me smile. They won't stay in the characterization I paint for them so that I can understand them. But instead, they delight me when I listen to who they really are and are becoming.

Listening to the boys isn't on my to do list, but it has become the undercurrent of everything that is on the list.