Change of Plans

I totally suck at spontaneity. I like love NEED to plan like some people perhaps need to breathe. Back before I had children when I had plenty of paid vacation days and expendable income I was at times known to have the next two years' worth of vacations and travels planned out. I still absolutely must have my calendar in good form and if a toddler happens to scribble on it with an errant crayon I have on three separate occasions gone out and bought another entire yearly calendar because I just couldn't take looking at the disorder. So, to say I get uptight and pissy when plans suddenly change is a little bit of an understatement. I know it is something I need to work on.. that seems to be a common theme with me these days.

This weekend my in laws were supposed to come visit. They were going to come in Thursday night and stay until Sunday because my father in law had a work related something or other nearby. My husband relayed that my mother in law planned to do some cooking so we'd have some premade meals since we're still having a tough time of things health wise around here. They also offered to watch the kids so we could go out and see a movie for the first time since the Weebs was born.

Now just two weeks ago they were supposed to come and we told the Weebles the entire week that her SiSi and Granddaddy would be here to see them on Friday. We played it up, day after day. She, especially, gets very very excited about seeing them. A huge snowstorm was on the way and they had to cancel their trip for fear of getting stuck here a few extra days. Unfortunately they didn't make that decision until they day they were supposed to come so I had already done all the shopping and cleaning for their visit and was somewhat annoyed they couldn't have made that call a little sooner since the weather had been forecast for several days at that point.

So, I learned my lesson a bit for this visit. We didn't mention anything to the kids and I didn't really do much to get ready for visitors until the day they were to arrive. My husband called the night before to make sure the trip was still on. I got up Thursday and cleaned up the house, trashed all the extra stuff in the fridge since I knew my MIL would need the space, went to the store to get a few items I thought we might need for breakfast and when the kids woke up from their naps I told them their grandparents were coming. My 2 year old was so excited she cleaned up all her toys and sat on the front steps a good five hours before they were scheduled to arrive. I even emailed them to show them a picture of her waiting for them and got back an email saying they were hurrying.

My husband called them on his way home from work to see what time they were going to get in and was told that his mom couldn't make it because she was sick but that his dad was still coming. W.T.F? Of course, I feel terrible that she is sick and sometimes things just happen. But since I had just gone through all of this two weeks ago I was pretty upset. This meant I needed to go back to the grocery store to make sure I'd have something to serve for dinner Saturday night since SiSi wouldn't be here to cook. So on Friday I drug my kids out and went to two different stores to get food for dinner tonight. Then last night my father in law casually mentioned that he wouldn't be coming back after his conference today, he was going straight back home. Umm what? He spent less than an hour the entire trip with the kids because by the time he got here both nights they were either already in bed, or nearly so. Not to mention I have a ton of food that we don't need.

In all fairness just a few weeks ago they came down to help us out when the kids first got RSV. They have been a huge help to us on many many occasions. It is just a totally different approach to life and I need to figure out how to get our two styles to coexist because it has been a source of frustration to me several times in the past. I know I need to go with the flow a lot better but I'd like to think it isn't unreasonable to point out to them that when they bail on plans at the last minute it really can affect us. And as the kids get older they won't be so easy to distract when they get disappointed.