Maggie has to make a dress out of recycled materials for Earth Day.  It’s optional, but of course she wants to participate and not just participate, she wants to have the best dress there.  She’s already designed the dress and believe me if she had access to all the materials needed, she’d have already made it.  She’s a “knock it out” kind of girl.  She likes to get things done, sometimes early.

I’m kind of a daydreamer.  I spend a lot of time in my head.  I get off track and I’m easily distracted.  I used to be incredibly focused, but somewhere along the way I became the flake in my family.  I’m great at telling stories, if you need a band aide, I’m your girl, but if you need to get a permission slip signed or you want to talk about your science fair project.  Umm, I’ll usually respond with, “We’ll talk about it this weekend?  When’s it due?”  I can write an entire book in 6 months, but the dry cleaning? Oh, come on it has to go in the bag, I have to remember to drop it off on my way to work.  Sometimes that’s just too many steps.

When you have this type of mother/daughter dynamic the daughter has moments where she turns into the adult.  I had that experience this morning when Maggie came into my office and exclaimed that her dress is due tomorrow and while she realizes that I like to wait until the last minute, that’s really not her style.  She really said that.  Can you say handful? I had to pinkie promise that we’d work on the dress tonight.  She left for school and I felt like I was in trouble.

Michael’s the same way.  If I had a nickel for every time he said, “Let’s just knock it out…get it done.”  I would be living in Chelsea.  I swear both of them wake up every morning with a mental list of things they are going to get done…and they get them done.  Regimented and what’s that stupid corporate word?  Results Oriented.  That’s definitely what they are.

Maggie is right, I do wait until the last minute.  I do my best work under the gun. I’m deadline oriented.  I can pull out amazing things during the wee hours of the morning.  Regimented people can’t do that.  They need their bedtime and sleep so they can wake up and torture people.  But truth be told, if she had not come in and insisted on the pinkie promise I probably would have forgotten or pushed it to another day.  Not very adult of me, but there it is.

I think you need both types of people in a family, or a society.  You need the people that plan and execute and those that work best under the gun.  A lot of things happen on the fly and those of us that are a little, shall we say…focus challenged, often save the day when the unexpected occurs.

My thoughts from the laundry room.  Snooze Button, Please.

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