They say it takes 21 days to form a habit, and now is as good a time as any to work on breaking some of mine. So by the Spring Equinox I vow to stop:
Putting backpacks on tables and counters
Recently I realized the shear microbial hell through which my children drag their backpacks. Packs get tossed on floors, dragged through restrooms, thrown unceremoniously on playgrounds, dropped mercilessly in parking lots and generally handled with grubby hands that are not washed despite much haggling, heckling and haranguing.
In a word, EW!
And then they get propped up on our dinner table or kitchen counter top to be emptied. If I stop to think of how many germs and potentially fecal matter is on the bottom of those backpacks being transferred to my counters, I start to retch.
So yes, this has to stop. The packs will now stay on the floor.
Cracking joints
It’s an absent minded habit that I have. In fact, I cracked my knuckles just now as I was taking a break from typing to gather my thoughts. And it’s not just my knuckles; I love cracking my back, my ankles and even my toes. It’s an oddly satisfying, that little sound. It just feels like everything is being popped back into place, but in truth it’s an annoying habit and probably not safe for my joints in the long term. I realized I had a problem when my daughter started demanding her father pull her toes because “mommy likes it so much when you do it!” Um yea. I will not release the crackin’ on this next generation…
Finishing the food left on the children’s plate
My grandmother used to say “so that so long as there is a child in the house, a mother will never go hungry”. She knew a little about going hungry, having lived through the First World War, the Depression, the Second World War, and the Greek Civil War. Yet, with 4 kids in her house, there was always one that wouldn’t finish his or her meager dinner, so she feasted on that. And let me tell you, Yia Yia was not a petite woman…
While we’re certainly not starving, I don’t like wasting food, so I frequently finish the 3 or 4 bites of whatever is left on my kids plates. Except in my case, those are all a bunch of extra calories that are starting to creep up on me. Now I eat until I am full, and leave their leftovers for leftovers.
21 days to form or break a bad habit. I’m on it! What habits do you want to break?
