assessments

My birthday was last Saturday.  Judging by the mountain of clean but unfolded laundry, someone seems to think she's still the Birthday Girl with a "get out of folding laundry because it's your birthday" pass.  Today is my lovely friend Katie's birthday as well as that of my beloved's grandfather and our cousin.  Another cousin's birthday earlier was this week, so I'm thinking the laundry folding can wait another day in honor of all the festivities.

Birthdays have a way of serving as a checkpoint or annual review of sorts.  Here's mine in a nutshell, with plenty left out but enough both to work at and build upon...

Things I thought I would be better at by now:

• getting kids to sleep 
• staying calm in the face of a temper tantrum or prolonged fussing
• going to bed

Things I'm pretty good at (surprisingly):

• using silliness or humor to convey instructions or cut through kvetching 
• laundry stain-fighting (knock on wood)

Things I am getting better at:

• getting things done -- not everything and not all the time, but more often, even if I have to chip away at whatever it is a little bit at a time
• winnowing down the number of things at which I am multitasking so that I can complete at least some of them before starting new ones
• getting dinner on the table
• staying on top of the laundry (sort of) 
• estimating the amount of time tasks actually take to accomplish
• arriving some place on time (or at least closer to it)

Things I'm not so good at (still):

• going to bed 
• making decisions

For my birthday buddies and me I pray that by God's grace, the year ahead may bring continued growth and understanding, peace and fortitude for the journey still to come, and laughter to bridge the expanse between expectations and reality.   Sleep would be good, too.