Our fridge calendar has four colours of sticky dot: blue for the dentist, green for the paediatrician, yellow for school events, and — since last spring — an orange dot for the chiropractor. My son’s football coach suggested it after noticing he kept favouring one shoulder when he ran.
Why the calendar works better than memory
Three kids, three different school years, three sets of appointment cards — trying to hold it all in my head stopped working around the time my daughter started secondary school. The calendar is boring and it is also the only system that has never let an appointment slip.
The chiropractor slot isn’t there because of a diagnosed problem. It’s a posture check, the same category as an eye test or a hearing screening — worth doing on a schedule rather than only when a complaint shows up.
The car-ride snack that survives all four dots
Whichever appointment we’re driving to, the snack box in the car holds the same thing: a small container of dates. No mess in the back seat, nothing that needs a fridge, and they last through a Saturday of back-to-back errands without turning into a sticky puddle the way most soft fruit does.
I buy a fresh batch from the Dates Fruit range whenever the tin runs low, and check the wider healthy food selection for whatever else needs restocking that week.
What actually goes on the calendar
Dentist: twice a year, fixed months. Paediatrician: once a year unless something comes up. Chiropractor: whenever the coach or the physio mentions it’s due, which so far has worked out to about every four months. None of it is urgent, and that is rather the point — the calendar exists so nothing becomes urgent in the first place.
If your own fridge doesn’t have a system yet, four sticky dots and a pen is the whole cost of entry. Ours also has a fifth, unofficial dot: whoever remembers to buy more dates before the box runs out. Questions about what we stock go through Contact Us.