It's My Crazy

It's a relatively new crazy, true, and I've gotten pretty good at scraping it off of me, but today I almost hit the excess zone about 11:30 am.

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I've become hyper attached to My Plans, and to Things Working. Now, I'm not talking about a grand, over-arching, "and then, Pinky, we take over the world" plan. I'm talking about oh, say - tomorrow, there's the midwives appointment, then a doctor appointment, then we're going to stop by the farmer's market for meat & produce, and be home for a nap for Am. It hasn't required that much 'planning' - but there are certain time deadlines & preparations I need to meet or make. Now, if that plan gets shot all to hell for no good reason, I will be aggravated. Intensely. Out of scale, in fact. I work very hard about being fluid, and mellow, and most times I do really well, but if something has had enough time invested in it to move from being a plan to a Plan, then gets trashed for some random thing, well. I get twitchy.

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I think it's just on overcompensation - I never used to plan to much at all, and was very zen about things. Being responsible for another small human limits the zen a little - it's all very fine to decide to stop & play in the fountain, all impromptu, but if you don't have diapers/change of clothes/snacks/nap time leeway/etc, a quick moment of fun can turn into a slow, roiling hell. It's taken me some time to find a balance between living in the now, and packing for what the now & the just-after-now will bring. The tension from that learning curve got plopped right onto my attachment to Plans.

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I've tried to ease off of this, & find a happy medium. It had been a long, long time since I'd succumbed to Plan Rage. And then there was daycare... long story short, I am very happy with Am's daycare - or at least, with the caregivers, the food, and the quality of care that Am receives. The management, who set policies, cash cheques, etc ? Well. I was very enraged, then sputtered, then had a holiday, then talked to mediator friend (thanks C___!), then went and talked to daycare. And things are now (mostly) happily resolved. We're not splitting daycare with another lady in the same way I'd originally planned, but we're still on track for Am to continue in daycare, at a reduced rate, two days a week. So that was a happy ending, and I'm trying not to fixate on the wasted time.

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Speaking of wasted time, did I mention I like for things to work? Whether it's a can-opener or a garden hose? I spent yesterday evening fighting to get a printer installed, then a document merged. Then I spent this morning remerging, reformatting, retinkering, cursing, gnashing my teeth, then finally realizing that it's not me, it's not Word, it's the new dadblasted printer. So I took a deep breath, worked around it, and skeined some yarn while the print job processed.

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The first ball of yarn was very soothing. (It's the mitten yarn, btw. Smooshy.) The second ball of yarn, not so much. It's never a good sign when you try to untie your skein of yarn - which should all be wound in the same direction, no? - and find loops moving in wrong directions and FOUR (4) ends, not two, as one would anticipate for one (1) length of yarn. It was the reverse of that one skein of Malabrigo that had no ends. (I spent 20 minutes, picking through the yarn on my swift, trying to find an end. I finally thought "screw it, this baby'll spit-splice", and chopped a random chunk. I then wound the entire ball - and knitted it, without ever finding the ends that should have been there. Mystery. Aggravating.) The yarn eventually yielded to my charms, spliced beautifully, and the print job ended well.

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Despite the printer & the evil skein*, my day was excellent, and followed my rough scheme, with a nice deviation for supper**. I did have an interesting conversation with the grocery clerk - she asked if I was afraid of having my second baby. "No, not really", I said, "It's just a lot harder to plan.***"

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*Hah! It could be the sinister skein, for the left hand! Hah! Does that make anyone else giggle?

**No, we didn't eat a deviation or have a deviant over for supper. There were unplanned and delightful dinner guests! Hence, deviation from plan of supper.

***More about than another post. Footnotes shouldn't be longer than the post, no?