We’ve all had those days.  You know what I’m talking about…you’ve planned the perfect day or the perfect event…the big day arrives and bam!  Nothing goes right.

Take my day for example.  I had today completely planned out – skating in the morning with my daughter, a play date in the afternoon for both kids and bingo in the evening with a good friend.  Three guesses as to which of my plans actually happened.  If you guessed none, you would be correct!  My daughter did not want to go skating without her brother (who was in school at the time), my friend and her son (our playdate) came down with a cold and my bingo buddy was super tired after a few bad nights of sleep.  Am I mad at anybody?  Of course not!  Not in the least.  How can you blame a friend for being sick or tired?  I completely understood and all events of my day are being rescheduled.  No big deal at all.  Still, there’s that tiny voice inside my head that’s saying “Really??  ALL of my plans were cancelled?!  REALLY?!  What luck!”  LOL.

As a Mom, there have been countless times when my plans for the kids haven’t gone the way I was hoping.  On days when I have a fun afternoon of sliding planned, my kids will have tantrums.  Mornings at the park will get rained out.  Family photo days are met with stubborn faces.

It’s not just the everyday things either.  Major events in their lives have gone awry.  One of the things I was most looking forward to was seeing how my first child would react to their first birthday cake.  I had seen so many other children celebrate their first birthdays and the cake was the moment that just made the day awesome.  Fast forward to the day of my son’s first birthday.  I had my professional camera ready to capture those lifelong memories, the video camera rolling for future viewing, and the iPhones ready for instant pictures to send to family.  We placed his birthday cake (which took me hours to bake and decorate) in front of him…I am practically ready to burst with excitement…my son sticks a finger in the cake…and then cries for 25 minutes straight.

In the beginning, these hiccups truly bothered me.  I am a planner and when my plan or visions didn’t go the way I wanted, it made me upset.  However, I soon came to realize that when you have kids, anything can happen.  My plans won’t always coincide with what their day brings them (moods, illness, etc).  Rather than dwell on what might have been, I’ve learned to adapt to the situation.  It really helps to keep things as stress free as possible, which is important to me.

Tomorrow, I think I will plan to NOT have a plan.  😉