Enlisted

I have a list in my mind. The first item on it is "Make a list."

I am a list-maker. I like writing things down, and crossing them off. I don't like doing the things in the middle there, but sometimes that happens too. Sometimes the stars align wonderfully and I get to cross things off without ever having done them. When I was pregnant my list-making reached epic proportions, of course. I have been known to have lists of the lists I need to make.

But for some reason, lately, my list-making seems to have fallen off. I have an ongoing shopping list, which is as close to meal planning as I get most weeks before I set off for the supermarket and let fate have its way with my debit card, and I have a few virtual sticky notes on my computer desktop, most of which have been being ignored for several months now, but that's about it.

And when I said "some reason", up there, I can tell you that it's not because now that I'm no longer pregnant or in the fuzzy land of post-partum, my mind is sharp and steel-trap-like and I have no need to write things down to remember them. No, a large part of "some reason" is Mabel, and her affinity for pens. And notebooks. And "writing" all over everything she can get her hands on. Added to that is her new desire to help me with cooking by dragging a chair over to the counter and standing up where she can see me, which happens to be just where I keep my big and little notebooks and all the pens. So then I move the pens out of her reach, and she can get the knives instead. So I give back the pens and let her scribble all over my shopping list, so that I can just make Monkey's sandwich or chop an onion, or whatever it was I was trying to do, in peace.

She has her own notebooks, of course. But mine are so much better. And pens work much better on skin than crayons do, you know, because naturally at some point the paper runs out and she becomes her own canvas, until I see what she's doing and she jumps guiltily and runs away in delight, and that's exactly when I've started chopping the garlic or taking out the raw chicken or breaking an egg so I have to wash my hands before I can follow to wrest the implement from her manic, good-sofa-seeking hands.

At the moment, I'm just about staying on the right side of this (go and look, it's hilarious). But I think I need to start writing lists again, or I'll forget to do something quite important, like booking our summer holidays or getting Monkey enrolled in elementary school. The big question is where will I keep my pens?