“Type A” Is Just a Nice Way of Saying “Anal”

I’m up late tonight. I need to keep busy for another two hours until kindergarten applications go live “sometime between midnight and 1 AM”. That’s aggressive. Why couldn’t it be 6AM? Or 8? Why an entirely ambiguous range in the middle of the night? My only theory is that they want to scope out what parent is anal enough to actually stay up that late clicking refresh on repeat just to register a 5-year-old for elementary school. But here’s the real mystery: if I’m the first one to register, at perhaps 12:03 AM… is that a good thing or a bad thing? Will it be like, “Oh, wow, such commitment! They must really care about her education and they will be such dedicated parent volunteers! Accepted!” or is it more like “Ohhhh dang. That mom does not have better things to do. Staying up until midnight? Way too high strung for us. Reject!” Can they see how many times I’ve refreshed the page while I wait? Is that a red flag? Am I coming on too strong?

Anyway, I’ve been passing the time doing my favorite activity. Making lists.

I started by making a list of all the foods I need to prep for Zary when she gets her tonsils taken out. She survives on crackers and a warm loaf of French bread with butter for 95% of her caloric intake, so swapping her to a liquid diet is going to take some creative planning.

Then I refreshed my list of things I want to do around the house but inevitably will never do because it’s noisy and someone is always napping and I never have time. Hang pictures from our wedding that have never touched a wall in either home we’ve owned. Wash the crystal because it’s dusty from never being used [except for that one wine glass of the twelve that’s on the left and I use it way too much so it’s clean]. Pressure wash the driveway. Tear out the kitchen backsplash. I can dream.

Then I started making a list of all of my favorite Mina-isms because I never ever everwant to forget how she talks right now:

• “I dood it!” (I did it)
• “Allbodies” (Everybody)
• “Straightly” (Straight)
• “How was your yesterday’s nap?” (How did you sleep last night?)
• “Diarrhea” (Diet Coke). My favorite.

And now, I’m going through my phone and deleting and organizing lists in my notes app. I have 157 lists. I have lists of lists. I have a problem.

I think as parents we all hope our children inherit some of our qualities. I hope my children inherit my creativity and problem solving. I hope they love music like I do. I hope they have my work ethic.

But, I hope they inherit Nick’s chill.

Zary has already begun presenting me with organized and ranked lists of things she wants to do that day (play dress up, paint a picture, make balloon animals…) She also labeled all the drawers in her bedroom and color organized her hair bows. So, she’s a lost cause.

There’s still hope for the little ones, though. When Nick kissed me goodnight 3 hours ago, I told him I was questioning if it was really worth it to stay up this late to apply for a school when we have a newborn and all and that maybe I would just go to bed instead and roll the dice in the morning. And then I got anxiety because hello, I’m Type A, and so here I sit and click refresh. And eat my third slice of Uncle Mike’s apple pie. And hope midnight comes soon