Bucket List For Parents: 'Before They Leave Me' Lists

1 ... 2 ... 3 ... 18? Before you can say "cheese!" your babies are out of diapers, tweens are buying prom dresses -- and bam, you are the proud owner of a whole adult person. While it's impossible to seize every single moment, there are some experiences with kids that are worth celebrating. And, the good news is, a few are events you can plan for.

Introducing the "Before They Leave Me" list, a way to prioritize fun activities to do with children in the midst of afterschool commitments, overly rushed dinners and, well, life. On the Jamaica Plain Patch site, columnist Anna Rubin wrote about her motivations for starting a list like this:

I decided to create my own bucket list of sorts ... A list of things I would like to do with my kids before they get too old to enjoy them, before they don't want to do things with their (stupid) parents anymore, before they leave for college. This is a fun list to create because I get to dream. Anything can go on it, even crazy, outrageous, silly things.

Similarly, Jennifer Lawson aka The Bloggess, has a Pinterest board of "stuff I should do with my kid before she's old." It's filled with images of hand puppets, DIY art projects, children having batting practice with colorful balloons and magic forts. In other words, a collection of ideas that are so pretty, you want to dive into your screen and start playing.

These women got us thinking -- what would be on our list of things to do before our children aren't children anymore? (Because as anyone who's watched "Peter Pan" knows, "I won't grow up" just isn't an option.) The ideas below come from members of The Huffington Post newsroom, staffers who are knee-deep in parenting as well as those who are just dipping their toes in, thinking about having kids, one day.

Read through and then tell us: what would be on your list? Use the comments or tweet your answers to @HuffPostParents with the hashtag #beforetheyleaveme. We'll feature your brilliant ideas in a slideshow.

LOOK: The "Before They Leave Me" List

Comments

[kjfri]

12:26 PM on 02/21/2012

I want to see and fall asleep watching the aurora borealis with him!

[Mark Melentjev]

11:09 AM on 02/11/2012

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[hwnorton12]

08:04 PM on 02/10/2012

Hey!
NJ is an absolutely beautiful state! Mountains, lakes, forests and beaches- we have it all! Come and visit. And quit picking on our state! We are sooooo tired of it!
PS- Not ONE of the Jersey Shore TV crowd is from NJ. They are from NY. So there!

[inkongirl]

12:24 PM on 02/07/2012

We've done quite a few of those things with our kids. We love any kind of musical activity. Recently, we introduced the kids to the wonders of vinyl and our 13 year old is enjoying making mix tapes on an old cassette player. As long as you're having fun with your children, and teaching them the basics of right and wrong, it's all good.

[dc111263]

12:28 AM on 02/06/2012

I love your ideas about making a bucket list for your family. I think every family's list will be different.

I have a question though: Why see all 50 states, "except for Jersey"? WTH??

[kimFM]

09:00 PM on 02/04/2012

Sure, I'll just remortgage my house. My kids won't get an education, but al least they will have seen where Bilbo Baggins lived (just kidding -- half kidding. These are great ambitions, but they're very unrealistic for pretty much everyone).

[llisa]

09:29 PM on 02/04/2012

Well, the whale watching, safari, surfing, and visit to the Lord of the Rings country were pretty out there for most parents of modest means--but I was happy to see that we had done a lot of them: reading, volunteering with them, watching their math (and other) skills exceed ours, reading something really good each had written (and hanging artwork on our walls that they had done), teaching them guitar, building a dollhouse, painting a mural (on the bathroom wall), having a dog who was part of the family, and seeing them stand up for what they believed in. We finally made it to the Grand Canyon when the kids were both out of college--but we made it and watched a sunset and a sunrise there.

I don't think it matters where you go with them, but do go with them. We camped with our kids--went canoeing and swimming in rivers and lakes, hiked up a mountain, lay hardly breathing one night as a raccoon and a skunk had an argument beneath the wing or our tent camper, sang around the campfire, lay on a river bank and looked up at the stars. . .

These were the trips we could afford, and the kids still remember them with fondness.

[lilyleemd]

06:21 AM on 02/01/2012

Great idea with some good suggestion (a few silly ones too). My little ones are now "big ones" but we tried to give them as many worthwhile memories, as a family, as we were able to do. Most of the time we planned our special activities over evening meals. ( In all honesty, lots of these things bombed when put into action. lol)

[fymayawf]

11:47 PM on 01/31/2012

Lists are for people who have no idea how to live their lives. Stop living your lives according to some BS concept like "bucket lists".

[llisa]

09:30 PM on 02/04/2012

However, I was pleasantly surprised to see that we had done a lot of them with our kids--not the impossibly expensive ones, but the ones that required time together--yeah, we did that.

[Cascadienne]

07:58 PM on 01/31/2012

This is a GREAT idea!!!! I sat down today with my kids (we're all at home...sick) and talked about the things that we wanted to do, and have made a running To Do list in the kitchen...includes everything from hunting for petroglyphs, leaving geocaches along our cross-country road trip, stormwatching, to making our own perfumes, handmaking all our Xmas presents one year and having a 'chocolate day' :)

[llisa]

09:32 PM on 02/04/2012

Great stuff! Our entire extended family hand made all our presents to each other one year. It was great. It required us to start months ahead of time and put thought and effort into each gift. We only did it the once, but everybody remembers that year fondly. One of my daughters, junior high age at the time, wrote and illustrated a book for her little cousins.

[Corinne McDermott]

07:48 PM on 01/31/2012

I love this. At last, not another online piece that suggests your life ends once you have kids with the requisite "stay home" comments. This is very refreshing, HuffPo - thanks!

[vieragam]

04:39 PM on 01/31/2012

We actually did go cross country with out three kids in a huge motorhome and we did go to the Grand Canyon. Great trip, the Canyon was amazing, It was a three week trip and we made stops in New Orleans, saw the Alamo, visited the painted desert, had lunch in Enid, OK, We saw battlegrounds, shopped in amazing towns and shops, and fell totally in love with Sedona, And there was SO much more. As they started to leave home for college, I was so happy we would always those memories!

[llisa]

09:36 PM on 02/04/2012

We finally got our trip out West with out kids AFTER they graduated college (not for lack of trying to do it earlier!). So glad we did!

And I remember the one and only road trip my parents took us on to Yellowstone and surrounding area. My dad only ever got one week off each year, so we usually went camping (which I loved) but one year we took that amazing trip. It still makes me happy when I think about it over 50 years later. The camping memories also make me smile.

[LostBalloon]

04:35 PM on 01/31/2012

Bucket List: Visit Glacier National Park within the next 10 years before any more of them melt away forever.

[llisa]

09:37 PM on 02/04/2012

Thanks for reminding me! Been meaning to do that.

[ae12wrangell]

04:30 PM on 01/31/2012

My bucket list would include seeing all of the United States, twice. Alphabettically in order of state capital's (Albany, NY. - Trenton, NJ.); Alphabettically from Alabama to Wyoming; And for good measur, include the US Territories, and Puerto Rico

[mac2jr]

04:21 PM on 01/31/2012

To those that want to travel, the USA is the world's number one place to do so. We have more to see in America a dozen of most countries, and most of what we have to see is within the means of even the poor among us. Our State and National Park system is extensive and available by vehicle and in many instances by Amtrak. You should go to websites like traveladvisor and SeniorCitizenLocalWeb for your research of places to visit and some of the plus and minus items of each.

As for teaching your children, most schools do NOT teach your children how to survive in the REAL world, and therefore you need to do so; start by doing creative things like sewing, cooking, baking, shopping, doing household chores, changing oil in the cars, etc. Then go to the harder items like taxes, buying homes, buying vehicles, filling out job applications, writing, studying, and learning what it is to get older, and then old. Teach about medical needs and prevention's, saving energy, and planing for a trip. All these 'bucket' items that YOUR PARENTS failed to TEACH YOU....

[llisa]

09:38 PM on 02/04/2012

Nope, my parents taught me and we taught our kids. All good things to know.

[Dan Crabtree]

03:53 PM on 01/31/2012

Sadly death is but a blink away for all..time to tell your family and friends how much they have ment to you.Been around the world and there is no place I may want to see except that giant beach we stumbled on in viet-nam in 1966..no-one no where and it streched for what seemed to be miles no camera no pictures exsist but it was the most breath taking strecth of water and beach I have ever seen..never repeated ..