This is the first summer that my 16-year old, Jonah, isn’t scheduled with camp or a half-day job. I had a mild panic attack last week thinking about how I was going to keep him from sleeping until 2 and binge-watching “The Office” on Netflix. I didn’t want to constantly nag him to doing his daily reading, jogging, and chores. So, I have come up with the solution. It’s a list. Yes, I love lists. My family mocks me and my OCD lists, but they work.

For Jonah, I write out the five or six things that have to happen during the day. When he completes them, he can feel free to do his binge-watching and long boarding with buddies. It’s like a written contract. I don’t have to remind him what he needs to do. He just has to consult the list.

On today’s list, he’s shadowing Ian at a computer camp for the morning. Then he has all day to get in a run, make some progress on his online class, help me with mulching, and clean up his suitcase from our weekend trip to Cleveland.

I have my own list for the day. With Ian safely in camp for the next month or so, I have to get back into a writing schedule. A few weeks ago, I had a nice rhythm going, but now I’ve forgotten everything I was doing. The article that I had begun in early June sounds dumb now. I need to pump out one or two articles this summer, so I’m going to blog for a while to get my brain back to thinking-writing mode.