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A special place on the fridge
Ahh, Sunday. When I was a working-outside-of-home Mom I absolutely dreaded Sunday. While Friday night and Saturday were hectic for me, on Sunday I was precious hours away from the workplace. Sunday meant another week of making lunches, making sure the kiddos had lots of clean socks and underwear, checking to see if all of the homework had been done, vacuuming, changing bed linens, having everything I needed to cook for dinner-in-a-hurry Monday to Friday and updating the kitchen calendar. The kitchen calendar was/is vital. Appointments, interviews, projects, school trips, pickups, drop-offs, after-school activities and work trips had to be “on the calendar by Sunday evening” to happen. If you’re a parent/caregiver, you know. Our calendar is always on our fridge. Yep, we have a paper, fridge calendar! The thing is when LOML and I “retired” we actually wondered if we’d see the end to the fridge calendar. Indeed after “his” retirement the calendar wasn’t printed for that first month of leisure. And then?
Well, and then we were reminded we still had one kiddo in high school and even the retired parents of high school kids need to have a calendar. Last kid had so much going on. Projects, Mummers, school trips, dental and medical appointments and a need for “rides”, sleepovers and school dances. A common refrain in our house is, “Is it on the calendar?” A question which could mean “If it’s not on the calendar, it isn’t happening” or “If it’s not on the calendar how do you expect me to remember?” It was both a reminder of things that would be happening and a passive lesson in responsibility. Our calendar isn’t just about that big list of things which were scheduled to happen, but it’s also a celebration of milestones. Over the years our calendars have had notations about birthdays, anniversaries, graduations and accomplishments like successful driver’s tests, the first tooth lost, the first steps taken and when the passing of a friend or family member happened. And, okay we both have cellphones with calendars, and computers with calendars but the calendar on the fridge, in the kitchen, is the encyclopaedia of our family’s comings and goings. It’s a month of us, right there for everyone to see.As LOML and I get older, the fridge calendar is also a reminder of the day of the week, the actual date and the month. Cuz when you’re old and retired things like that are easy enough to forget. When you’re retired, it’s all weekend, dontcha know? Before our feet hit the floor in the morning we have those nano-seconds when we need a reminder of where we are in time—in the big picture. We also need to know how sorry we’ll have to feel because we’ve promised to be somewhere on a certain date and a specific time.
In the past it was our “family command centre”. It’s not fancy. It isn’t from a car dealership or the mechanic or the insurance company. It’s something LOML prints on the eve of the first of the month and affixes to the fridge with little bubble magnets, one in each corner and one on the day we’re currently experiencing. These days we don’t have little kid art work in special slots. There’s no calendar page flipping. No advertising. Just a grid with dates and days, printed in black ink. We haven’t put a school activity on the calendar for years. However, we still have appointments. Foot clinic, dental check-ups, prescription renewals, lunches with friends, tune-ups for vehicles, opening dates for art shows we may, or may not, attend. Next month the graduation of our grandkid will feature prominently on our Fridge Calendar. I wish I’d kept the calendar from eighteen years ago when she was a newborn.
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