I am a planner. (My mother and husband are rolling
their eyes right now, as if to sarcastically say, “You think?”) I like
knowing exactly when something is going to happen, where it will take
place and how long it will last. And I prefer to have this knowledge well
in advance – last minute decisions are not anywhere near my comfort zone.
This personality trait served me pretty well before I had kids, but you
parents out there probably know what I’m going to say next. The best laid
plans, when you have children, can often be shifted around, stomped on, or
shot down entirely.
The other aspect of being such a planner is the disappointment that comes
when my carefully crafted plans become derailed. How I deal with this
disappointment has changed drastically since I’ve become a mom.
We recently decided
to take a trip to Washington, D.C. Being the planner that I am, I
requested a White House tour months in advance through my congressman’s
office. When I got the phone call that my requested date was unavailable,
but the day before was, I uncharacteristically said yes before I was even
sure we could extend our hotel stay an extra day early.
Unfortunately, our plans were literally
buried in snow – the blizzard in February caused the White House to cancel
all tours for several days in a row, including the day we were scheduled
to go. We decided to cancel all our other plans as well, figuring it was
better to be safe than sorry (as in, sorry to be stuck in the nightmare
traffic jams that D.C. saw in the days following the storm).
What I dreaded the most about this
disappointment was telling the girls that something they were so excited
about was going to have to be postponed, or worse, canceled.
Sometimes
being a parent means hiding your own disappointment so that your children
don’t get too upset. This situation forced me to have a more positive
attitude, even though what I really wanted to do was stamp my feet, shake
my fist and maybe even yell a little bit about how unfair it was that lack
of snow plows in the nation’s capitol were affecting our travel plans.
I tried to
put a positive spin on it, by telling them that there was a possibility we
could reschedule our tour, although we weren’t sure when that would be.
(Again, my need to know when things will happen had to be squashed for the
sake of keeping an optimistic attitude.)
The girls
were surprisingly calm about the news of our spoiled weekend. It turns out
the trick to their reaction was something my husband did without my
knowledge. While I was at a meeting the night it started snowing, he
started preparing the girls for the possibility of our plans having to be
cancelled. He didn’t tell me until recently that there were some tears
from our youngest that night. But when we finally got the official news of
the cancellation the following day, there was no crying, just some long
faces.
We did get
a pleasant surprise exactly a week after the blizzard. I received a phone
call on a Wednesday informing us that there was an available White House
tour that very Friday. Of course, that meant lots of last minute
scrambling to get everything in order with just two days notice. But, hey,
I am a great planner, even under a deadline!
