schedules

Before I was a parent, or perhaps before I was a parent of three, I was all about taking time for the things that matter, or so I thought. I looked down my nose, ever so slightly, at those over-scheduled hectic parents who were in too much of a rush to enjoy their kids or their lives.

Fast forward to today when the week is a carefully orchestrated dance to make sure everyone gets where they need to be and gets fed at regular intervals. I have to admit that I take a certain amount of pleasure in being the master scheduler, and a day that is packed full of activities, but still goes off without a hitch, gets me on a bit of a high.

Nothing wrong with that. mostly. But sometimes a tightly scheduled day does not leave room for spontaneity or emotions (and all that jazz).

Let me give you an example:

The day before we left for Saskatoon at Christmas break was a little crazy. Molly was singing with her choir in Nutcracker; we had sledding plans in the morning, and we also needed to take the dog to her spa (kennel). We came home from sledding, got dressed for the ballet, then piled into the car. In my scheduling frenzy, I had not actually told the girls that the dog would be  going to the kennel right after we got dropped off at the ballet. They found out at the worst possible moment and cried all the way to the ballet (which was supposed to be a fun outing, but now no one wanted to go.)  I had not penciled in time for the kids to say goodbye to the dog or have feelings about it. At the time, I was annoyed with the kids for wrecking this perfect piece of scheduling. How dare they have emotions? We don't have time for that! (Not that I thought about it that way, but really, that's pretty much what it amounted to.

So, I'm trying to think of some way to conclude this little entry. As always, I'm trying to do better, I guess.