Have a plan . . . Be prepared for your plan to fail.

I am a planner. I've never really liked making todo lists, but I love to make plans. It is the one thing that I can freely admit without any reservations that I'm actually really good at. Okay so I'm sort of great at it (as long as you exclude all things related to a life plan). I'll make you a plan sometime and you'll see.

My desire to make plans started when I was small and my mom would make packing lists for trips with items like pillels and undenware (trust me these things are hilariously funny). Then once my dad had me type up a grocery list, except it wasn't an ordinary list. This one was laid out by aisle and contained all the items that could regularly be found in our house. We printed out a bunch of copies and hung the lists inside the cupboard above the tiny desk in the kitchen so that when you used the last of something up, you just checked the box next to the item and mom would buy it at the store the next time she went. Pretty smart, huh? 

I grew up with these great lists and things and as hard as I tried to fight it, I'm just a left brained person. Obviously I've got a little bit of right brain working (otherwise I'd fall down when I walked and not be able to feed and dress myself and stuff) but that part of me is always taking a back seat. I guess it makes sense that this strong part of my personality would manifest itself now and then. Okay now you have the back story about the plans. 

Here are two stories about what happens when lists go awry. I like to go to Disneyland. My husband likes to go to Disneyland. For the first four years of our marriage my husband and I visited Disneyland every six months. The only time we missed this trip was in January 1999 when we visited Disney World in celebration of my college graduation. So we like to go there, and we've been there a lot, and I have some opinions about how to maximize fun while you are there.  Four kids later, we hadn't been in a while. There was no way we could go with just 2 adults for 4 kids under 6. So we invited the in laws and T* to come with us.

Trip #1 -

When you start the trip with mono AND one of the children starts throwing up when you are only a mile from home, you should probably turn around. But I had a plan and we were going to soldier through this. 10-12 hours later we arrived in Primm, NV (about 4.5 hours from home) with two children who had been throwing up every ten minutes since we left. We arrived with the middle one holding a "barf cup", one of the twins only wearing a diaper, and the entire car stinking to high heaven. But did we turn around? No! We had a plan. The plan did not include 90% of our party catching the bug and throwing up along the way. We did manage to make it through one of the worst vacations I've ever known. I have more stories, but seriously just know it was awful.

Because trip #1 was so terrible a year later we planned trip #2 -

Again we took the in laws and T to help, because Disneyland with 4 kids under 7 didn't sound all that much easier than with 4 kids under 6. This time I wasn't going to let anything stand in our way, so I made an incredibly detailed (think to the minute) plan of when we were going to ride each ride, or find a seat for each parade, or eat each meal. I'd taken everyone's preferences into account and made a masterful plan. I'd purchased software that could estimate how long it took to A) walk to each ride and B) wait in line at each ride. It is pretty cool. The first few days were perfect. My favorite ode to success was when we got in line for Alice in Wonderland and waited 5 min, by the time we'd come out on the little butterfly terrace track the line stretched out almost to the teacups. Aaahhhh my plan was working. Then came the piece I will never, ever, be able to live down. We'd done a baby swap at Soarin' Over California so that all those tall enough to ride could while not leaving the babies unattended. This ride takes a LONG time to baby swap and after having entertained the too short children in a confined area for over 40 min I was ready to run to our next activity. Then my MIL had to use the restroom (an unscheduled trip I might add) and I was huffing and puffing about it taking too long, we needed to move on to the next ride. As a slave to the up to the minute schedule you can't get in line late or everything is thrown off. So we needed to skip that ride and move onto something else in a different area of the park. Off we headed through the main fountain area with Liz still huffing and puffing. And out of the character doors came Pluto. There was not a soul in sight. We had Pluto to ourselves for 10-15 min before anyone showed up.

Here is the lesson for today. I still believe in having a plan. I believe in packing jammies to go to Grandma's house 30 min away, and have had a pretty good mom purse. We over pack for all the just in cases on vacation, and have great food storage. But now I huff and puff a little less when the plan falls apart. When we forget the kool-aid and jammies and boxes that should go to Grandma's or when somebody wants to stop and smell the flowers it's okay. After all you never know who is waiting just around the corner to meet you.

*T is my single sister in law. She is an auntie, which means she pays for dance lessons when we can't, and takes the kids on sleepovers, and lets us swim in her pool, and is the sister I always wanted but had to get married to get. If you don't have a T, you really should try to find one. They are often lifesavers.