goodfountain

Anyone who knows me here in Real Life is acutely aware that I am a disorganized fool. I’m forgetful, I’m nearly late to everything, I’m always running out of stuff. I lose papers, I forget to record debit transactions, sending birthday cards on time is a rarity. I’m too embarrassed to talk about my failures in regards to Teacher Appreciation Week.

I’m not sure exactly how this happened. Back in the Olden Days when I held a Corporate Job I used a Franklin Planner and was so on top of things. Met deadlines, attended meetings, even responded to emails. At work, that is. I still ran out of toilet paper at home sometimes. And cat food. My poor cats.

Now that my Job IS the home, things are getting worse. I’m unorganized and forgetful. Recently my husband badgered talked me into buying a Planner/Calendar for at home. I chose a pretty floral one that holds pictures too. I printed a nice shot of the girls as my cover for it. I’m a Mom now, not Corporate, i don’t need sleek black or a $30 (or more!) price tag. $7.87 from the Evil Empire will do. Dearest Husband of mine has proclaimed he’s taking me under his wing to help me get Organized. Dear God, help us now, this may be our demise. Under his tutelage, no longer will I forget to take the chicken out of the freezer, buy his beloved Chocolate Silk, or let us run out of Zyrtec. Do you know why? Because it will all be Written Down.

The Darling that he is promises to help me organize my time in blocks so that I get more accomplished during the day. I’m willing to give it a try because when I do have moments of organization and can get mucho accomplished, I feel great. I love the feeling of being organized. Unfortunately, it goes entirely against my grain to be organized (and disciplined) and so, invariably, most of my attempts at it fail. Miserably.

I am willing to accept his help and try some new things, but within reason. He’s never taken care of one kid, much less two, for more than about 3 hours so he doesn’t really have a concept of how difficult it can be to follow the prescribed routine. Not always difficult, but it can be challenging. Just because I allocate time to clean my refrigerator doesn’t mean I will actually get to finish cleaning it. Trust me. It’s taken me three days to do two shelves in my refrigerator. That’s a bit extreme, but it’s true. For this week.

My disorganized self hasn’t been an entirely bad thing, I’ve decided. I have a theory. About Chee. I have studied the DSM-IV criteria for Autism Spectrum Disorder time and again. Chee has several of the traits, and she’s lost some of them too. One trait that I’ve never been able to Check The Box on for her is apparently inflexible adherence to specific, nonfunctional routines or rituals. I cannot say with confidence that I know what is meant by nonfunctional, other than to say a bedtime routine is probably functional while an always-laying-your-stuffed-animals-down-the-same-way routine, for example, is probably nonfunctional.

My theory is that because I have never had a routine for us, other than three meals a day at roughly the same time each day, that Chee has never had the chance to grow rigid or firmly attached to anything. That is not to say that she doesn’t do certain things the same way all the time, but they are few, and she is easily redirected from them.

For example, when she first visited her preschool classroom to meet her teacher before she started, she sat down and played with the dollhouse. Henceforth, whenever it was time to choose something to play with she always chose the dollhouse. Her teachers commented on this to me, so I suggested they just tell her to find something else to play with. They did, and she did. No big deal.

It does not escape me that I could totally, totally be wrong about this. Nor does it escape me that many a parent may read this and say, I’m totally disorganized and have no routine but my child has strict adherence to nonfunctional routines.

All of that is probably true. I know that. My personality and my inability to provide consistent daily structure and routine may or may not have anything to do with Chee’s flexible nature. But it makes me feel a little better thinking that my Disorganized Self may have finally paid off. And possibly in a big way.