Calendar Girl

It's the beginning of a new year, and I am trying to get organized this year -- and help my daughter to get organized in the process! As some of my family and friends would agree, this past year I began losing my mind as far as remembering dates of events and activities, sometimes forgetting altogether, sometimes overbooking... Partially I attribute this to having a second child -- honestly, with the birth of each of my girls, I have lost a little bit of my formally fantastic memory skills. I'm sure this has more to do with having more to remember, and less to do with childbirth itself... Add to this the fact that my husband works a rotating schedule which affects our day care situation with my parents and I am constantly having to keep track of what everyone is doing -- my husband is watching the kids this day and this day, Dad is watching this day, Mom this day, and heaven forbid someone needs to swap a day for some reason! Whew -- a lot to keep track of!

And that's just daily things -- I have a terrible time remembering birthdays lately and getting cards out -- our family has grown so large over the years!

So, I have a new calendar in the kitchen that we can all see every day before we walk out of the house, and I have a pocket calendar in my purse for the first time this year. My daughter got a Disney calendar as a gift this Christmas, and when I saw it yesterday (we're still putting the Christmas stuff away!) I got an idea that would be fun for my girl and help both of us, hopefully!

When she got home from school yesterday, we took out her calendar and we went through and I helped her write in a bunch of family birthdays on the calendar. We also used the stickers that came with it to mark holidays, our family vacation, the last day of school -- things that she will be looking forward to! Our plan is also to add the birthdays of a few of her close friends, and I would like to use this calendar as a tool to help her get into the habit of a) using a calendar to keep track of important dates (birthday parties, class trips, dance recital) and b) sending out cards to people that she cares about. As a bonus for me, I'm sure that she will help remind ME to send cards out as well!

Another great thing about having your child use their own calendar, and hanging it somewhere that they can look at every day, is that it helps them conceptualize time. When I was pregnant with my second daughter, my girl was SO anxious and excited and as we got closer to my due date every day she thought that was the day the baby was coming. It was hard for her to grasp how long a month was, so I made a calendar for her with the last two weeks of June and the first two weeks of July and we added in all of the things that we had planned -- trip to the zoo, Mommy's last day of work, 4th of July bbq, and finally the baby's arrival. It helped her to count down the days until her sister arrived (late of course...)!

And it's working with this calendar as well -- this morning she informed me that there are 8 days until her birthday party and 10 days until her actual birthday! (See, it's helping me already -- I still have a few things to get ready, and apparently only 8 days to do them in!)