Last-minute changes

In my previous life, before twins, I was always a planner. Long-term and short-term, I’m a scheduler. A list-maker. Spontaneous is not my strong suit. By and large, this is a good thing when you have infant twins. If you are going to get anything done at all, it requires advance preparation. So you can imagine my irritation when someone else messes up my plans.

Last week, it was the cleaning people who come to my house every other week (a must for any new mom, I think). They usually come every other Wednesday around 10:30. OK, no problem. I can plan to be out of the house then. A long walk at the pond if it’s nice, or a trip to the mall if it isn’t. I make plans with people to meet them. And then, at 10:45pm the night before, I get an email asking if it’s OK to come at 9am instead of 10:30. Um, NO! Honestly, less than 12 hours’ notice is poor form under any circumstances. But with two babies, it’s impossible. Can I even start with the fact that I only got the email because I was up at 3am? Ugh.

Today, it was my OB’s office, yet again. I had an appointment at 3:45 this afternoon (just a checkup, nothing interesting). Not a great time of day, since that can be a fussy time for the babies, but I don’t tend to have a lot of choice in the matter. The other bummer about having the appointment today is that it was unseasonably mild and sunny today. A great day to leave the house. But I am loathe to do more than one outing in a day, if I can avoid it, since it can seriously mess with our routine. And so I planned my day around this lame excuse for an outing. And then, my phone rang at 1:45. My doctor was home sick. But had hoped she’d feel better by the afternoon, which is why it took them so long to call me. Two hours before the appointment (by which time I’m in final preparation mode… I know who needs to be fed before we get into carseats, etc.).

Not cool! I mean, I’m sorry she was sick. She’s a nice person and all. But come on! That was my whole day! I could have used my one outing in the morning, when the babies are happier. I could have gone to the mall or out to lunch. But no, I did laundry, saving my outing for the stupid appointment. So, I was crabby, and then the babies got fussy. Since it was still sunny and about 60 degrees, I plopped them in the stroller and we walked for an hour. For the first half, Daniel started crying if I dared stop moving. Ugh. And there aren’t a lot of good places to walk near me, since most of the streets are dead ends (makes for a boring walk, back & forth), and the ones that aren’t are pretty busy. But walk, we did. And I wasn’t even feeling much less crabby until we got home, I pulled down the blankets I’d hung over the stroller to block the sun and wind, and both babies were calmly awake. Ahhh…

At least the dog didn’t complain