High Maintenance Mom

B's class at school has a calendar up on the wall to mark all their important activities. Days are marked for the days when friends are moving or have vacations planned, pajama day, share day, farm day, and the end of the year party. It looked like a great idea so I thought I would put up a calendar at home too. I bought the write-on-wipe-off $1.00 one at Target and started to fill in August. I had filled in one through 14 before B started to cry. He wanted to fill in his birthday month. Then he got even more upset when I started to fill in his birthday month and didn't start with the one in the far left corner...

I tried to explain that we have to put the one on the day of the week when the first day of the month is but it didn't make sense to him. I then tried to make a calendar with only a few weeks on it but he wanted to fill in all the boxes. It was even more confusing when I tried to show half of August and half of September on the same page. I finally gave up and looked for a real calendar for next year.

I ended up buying the Dr. Seuss one at Costco. It comes with a 16 month calendar with a magnet to attach it to the refrigerator and stickers to mark a few special days. Also included was a mini 12 month calendar and a few notecards. It's fun. B and I choose a sticker to put on his birthday and one for his first day of school. I don't think he understands where the first of the month is any better than he did yesterday but at least he can flip to his birthday month and see where the one is (and his birthday, of course).

Now that we have two kids, the calendar is an important tool. We use the Google calendar online because it lets us share our family, work, and personal activites. The paper one is now becoming fun for the kids to see. They like to put stickers on it and see us writing on it.

Note: There were several fun calendars at Costco including a Boynton Mom's calendar. They also have a bunch of great sticker books, activity books, and the LeapFrog Fridge Phonics Deluxe (the letter magnets that go into a holder that plays a song for each letter). And the first batch of holiday items are available.