Mother's Day Family Planning Meeting -- A Present in Itself

My husband, Mark, asked Hannah to take notes during our family meeting this morning.  We have family meetings all the time as a way to handle issues or get organized and headed the same direction.  This one was special because the kids had planned to do a big Spring clean for Mother's Day.  Basically, at the end of the meeting he wanted there to be a list of jobs and assignments.  

These meetings take forever in our house for obvious reasons.  We spend more time exiting the freeway onto some tangent and getting back on track more than we actually stay on track.  They are, however, terribly entertaining.

The kids heard Mark asked Hannah to take notes and they all scattered to get notebooks.  Hannah is our one non-ADHD child, he wanted a comprehensive check list everyone could follow.  He tried to stop everyone before they got too far off track.  It wasn't working.  Seeing as they were already coming back with notebooks in hand, I thought this might be a fun experiment.  Let them all take notes, then we'll compare them, and see what information each child actually took in.

Mark got the meeting started again, "Okay,"  The heads went down, pencils to paper, they were ready and writing, "okay" was recorded.  I chuckled.   This was going to be interesting.  Lists and divisions of jobs were recorded.  Important instructions were recorded, "After Rachel is finished with laundry she helps Jaren with his quest for power."  I don't remember that but more than one person recorded it so it must have been said.

Mariah took a great deal of liberties with her list.  It was clearly a soapbox moment more than a checklist of jobs.  Most of it -- even the actual list of instructions -- are wrong.


NOTES for family meeting 5.6.2011

*Delilah  likes pistachios (one of our little dogs)
Team Leaders
Fernando, Rachel, Mariah (that's me!) 
Hannah- clean and organize bathroom
*Rachel is not found a adequate candidate for team captain by many of her siblings.
Rachel would have been shot by a firing squad and does not take this meeting seriously.
Watch for her grabbing clubs with spikes and ointment - red flag
She, Rachel, did not text back and fancies me a rear end
Okay
She, Rachel, is negative about the outcome of this meeting
She reminisces about corn dog princess and burrito man
Daddy is thinking
Hunter is paired with Fernando
Rachel, just --nevermind
The counter is the bane of his (daddy's) existence
Rachel enjoys placing blame on others.  She is the butt of our jokes.
Funeral potatoes
Mary Margaret has the girls bathroom.  She is not on a team.
Daddy places blame with out basis in fact.
...I am the Alpha and Omega
We are giving Mum a clean house for Mother'sDay
Rachel is the on-call paramedic and in-charge... conditionally 
Jaren is our team leader and the power is going to his head and coming out his ears
After Rachel is done with laundry she helps Jaren with his quest for power and glory

It was a fun meeting, a great present, and a wonderful Mother's Day.