Maternity leave checklist

Best thing to see in the morning, especially after a long night!




Isn't that sweet?! :-)

So...writing down the things I want the boys to see and do before they turn 3 has me in the list-making mood.

So I've decided to write down the things I want to accomplish while I'm on maternity leave. Writing things down (and putting them out in the blogosphere) ups the ante and makes me more accountable. So, even though a lot of what I want to accomplish is mundane, I'm still gonna write it down.

Here goes:

• Finish sending out thank-you cards to friends
• Organize and clean out my basement
• Swap out winter and spring/summer clothes
• Figure out what to do with maternity clothes (consignment? Freecycle? Give to a friend?)
• Frame (and/or re-frame) photos; hang them in the house
• Find an aesthetically-pleasing (or if not, then cheap and easy) way to organize the boys' books in the living room play area
• Take my bedroom comforter to the Laundromat to wash
• Take my Christmas tablecloth to the dry cleaners (yes, I still have not done that and it's April. And what?)
• Take some things back to Macy's/Target
  
• Get a pedicure
• Get my eyebrows done
• Go to the Dominicans and get my hair done (This item and the previous two are all part of Operation Bring the Sexy Back. New spring/summer clothes are also a part of that mission, but only after this baby belly has gone the way of the wooly mammoth.)
  
• Go visit friends with Clair, or the boys, or all 3 (Kelly, in particular)
• Go visit friends all alone! Preferably where a meal and cocktails are present (Angel, Kelly, Beth, Stacey)
• Go visit Granddad
• Have lunch with Lester during the work week
• Go out with Lester on a real grown-up date
  
• Take my Dad out for lunch again, this time with Tahira since she missed it last time
  
• Get Clair on a predictable eating and sleeping schedule
• Get Clair sleeping in her own bed
• Wean the boys from their nighttime bottle
• Get on the pill
• Get on the pill!
• Get ON THE PILL!
• Make an appointment with my primary care doctor to get my sugars tested
• Plan and have the boys' 2nd birthday party
  

This is a sizeable -- and somewhat daunting list -- but some of these things can be done on the same day, and others have to happen over time. For what it's worth, I have already started decreasing the amount of milk in the boys' nighttime bottles; I have a prescription for the pill being called into my pharmacy as we speak; and I've been working on Clair's haphazard eating/sleeping/non-crib-loving self since she was born.

I also still want to do fun things with the boys while I'm off, so I'll have to squeeze all this in around that. Honestly, that's most important since I don't know if I'll ever have this kind of time off again while they're young.

So now it's out there, my To-Do list for maternity leave (which ends officially May 16, meaning it's halfway over. Ack!)

You all hold me accountable, OK? As I said, I may never have this kind of time again.