Nature or Nurture

I am your classic type A personality. One of the symptoms thereof is my desire, nay, need to write lists for EVERYTHING. Life goal lists, To-do lists, shopping lists, project lists, people to throw water balloons at list... you get the picture.

It appears this trait is rubbing off on my impressionable children. They currently refuse to clean their rooms if they do not have a list to follow (for more details on the room cleaning drama see post on dramakazeandtheredcurse.blogspot 'Just Clean Your Room')

A few months ago Sydney (who is now 9) wrote us up an itinerary for a mini vacation she wanted us to go on. It was fantastic.

4:00 Leave School
4:30 - 5:30 Go home and pack
6:00 Drive to hotel
6:30 Check in to hotel
7:00 Play with toys
8:00 Watch a movie
10:00 Go to bed

and so on and so forth for 2 days worth of activities. (I have it on my 'To Do' list for this year to actually do that vacation)


Today, I'm realizing I've created a monster. Sydney sat down before dinner and wrote up a list for her play date with her best friend, Anna, tomorrow.

1. Listen to Abba (2 songs) (Don't blame me, Grandma let her watch Mamma Mia!)
2. Listen to HSM3 (2 songs) (That's High School Musical 3, for those uninitiated)
3. Beat Neil at Wii tennis (The friend's brother)
4. Beat you (Anna) at Wii bowling (again) (the previous parenthetical remark '(again)' is what she actually wrote)

She is still working on it. There are a further 14 blank lines she intends to fill in. We had to have a talk about being flexible.

Then she asked how to spell 'flexible'....