Monday, June 12, 2006

Good thing I'm planning the schedule

I had the kids at my office for an unusual 2 hours the other day. Usually they are there for no more than 15- 20 minutes for me to wrap up and then get them to their practice. But, with school finishing up and their after school program ending (two weeks before school, what is up with that?) I picked them up from school and brought them to work. I knew I would have to get them busy with something or they would start bickering or playing soccer with balled up printer paper. I'm all about the proper office etiquette, and I'm pretty sure the boys rough housing wouldn't quite be considered "proper."
Fortunately, Buzz had homework. Unfortunately, Woody did not. I had to find something for him to do, and quick. I gave him a piece of paper and told him to write down his ideal summer schedule.
"What do you mean?"

"I mean, use your imagination and create the perfect summer schedule for yourself."

"For every day?"

I was losing him. "No," I said. "just do it for the one week in June and the one week in August that I have off that we are going to spend together. Write down everything that you want to do during that time and I'll take it into consideration when I'm planning out our schedules."

"Oh. Okay."

So, I gave him my little desk calendar and he sat down to do his task. Here is what he came up with:

Week 1:
Sunday- beach
Monday- walk dog & run (we take the dog on a walk and run laps at the middle school nearby)
Tuesday- library
Wednesday- Six Flags
Thursday- movies
Friday- Raging Waters (water park)
Saturday- bike ride

Week 2:
Sunday- bike ride
Monday- miniature golf or glow in the dark golf
Tuesday- walk dog
Wednesday- bowling
Thursday- real golf with friend "j" or anyone else that plays golf
Friday- Great America (amusement park)
Saturday- bike ride

He proudly handed me his schedule for me to read. After a few minutes he asked if I liked it. I told him it looked good and gave me a lot of good ideas for things to do. Which was true, I want to make sure we are all on the same page and I'm not just doing things that I think they want to do but would really rather be doing something else.
To which he said, "yeah, do you like how I balanced out the educational stuff with the fun stuff?"
I looked at it again, thinking maybe I missed something. "Um, what do you mean?"

"I put down going to the library." He said

"Yeah. One day. Out of fourteen! Where is the balance?"

"Well," he said thinking quickly. "There is a lot of physical fitness stuff too. So, that with the library and the fun stuff, is a good balance isn't it?"

"Yes, you are right," I said knowing that when I make the final schedule it would be a little more balanced but that that would be a battle for another day and today I would concede gracefully, "good job."

(ha ha, I said "that that")

3 comments:

Zephra said...

Can I come? Everything except the running sounds great to me.

Bonnie B said...

I think it sounds like a great two weeks-- walk the dog-- now that is sweet.

Pollyanna said...

I know I think walk the dog is sweet too. Our dog would love it if we put walking her in our "dream" schedule. I think you guys are gonna have a GREAT time.