Time.
In theory there is plenty but when it comes to practical use of it, there is never enough. That is why I am an avid planner. My mind is always scheduling and trying to figure out time saving ways to multitask. I like my schedule planned 6- 8 months in advance and finalized six weeks out, just the way the Army publishes training schedules. I think I drive Mack crazy when I start talking about Thanksgiving in March or Spring Break as soon as school begins. But like the Army, what ever is planned 6 weeks out never seems to happen in 6 weeks. Constantly changing and adapting and I’m not too bad at it.
I try to keep the family message board ready with an iPad that has the calendar readily available.
Now this might make me sound OCD but I’m not. (no matter what Mack says) I don’t schedule to the point of no leeway. If we are on vacation I will say day one 1 is here day 2 there. Never much more than that.
What I have NEVER been able to do is add enough of a buffer for all those non-planned, wacky crazy things that happens when you have kids. And the more kids to you have the wackier and crazier (and sometimes nastier) things are bound to happen to destroy my fantasy of a scheduled world. And the stress it causes usually reduces myself to tears 2 or 3 times before the end of it.
Take last weekend getting ready for our trip to New York. All I had to do was run a few errands and pack. Of course, things alway go fluey. We had to drop off the dogs at the kennel, pick up the kitchen moulding and pack. By the time we ran all our errands I had one child vomited twice, one had an accident in her pants, and we had been in the car for 7 hours. Not the nice easy way I had thought our day would be. That is when the panic sets in, when my schedule has gone to hell.
I did get packed but it was another late night and a very early morning before we went to the airport.
Leave a comment