Time Management

My first day home alone with both kids was rainy and dreary. The kind of day where you don't really want to go anywhere anyway, and you wind up wearing your pajamas all day. Jack, keeping to his new-but-welcomed streak of sleeping "late", woke around 6:30am, though Maggie had been snergulling since about 5am keeping us both up. This was the day of Jack's First Playdate. We were scheduled to show up at little Maeve's house between 8:30am-8:45am. Now when Maeve's mom first suggested the 15-minute window I found myself thinking, 'That's so imprecise, what time should we really arrive? Should we arrive at 8:30 to be timely, or somewhere in the middle of the window so as not to seem too eager? Would it be rude to be there promptly at 8:30? Maybe we should leave at 8:27 so that we will arrive in the first half of the window.' Et cetera, et cetera. The thought of arriving at the end of the window never occurred to me.

Well, as we rolled around downstairs in our pajamas this morning, amidst the chaos of our half-emptied bags from the weekend trip, I sipped my coffee slowly and read my email while Maggie snoozed in her chair and Jack sat on my lap and colored with his new crayons ('On the paper, Jack, not the table'). I glanced at the clock an suddenly realized that it was 8:10am- no one was dressed or anywhere close to ready. I jumped up and changed diapers, dressed us all, packed a diaper bag, located the lost piece of paper with Maeve & Barbara's address, and loaded us all into the car. It was 8:33am.

Of course there was no street sign. So I passed their street the first time. I turned around and guessed on my second pass by, and finally located their house. I parked, and looked at the clock: 8:49am. Ummmmm. Whoops? So much for my plans to leave precisely at 8:27am.

So, as it turns, I think I get the time window. In fact, I think I'll embrace the time window from now on. Unfortunately we were still late. But only by 4 minutes.