Creatures Of Habit

All three of my kids like having routines.  It is more important for Thing Two than for the others, but thankfully he's a lot more flexible than he used to be, now that he can process what's going on when things change.

This is an especially good thing in the summer, because the constant changes in the schedule would otherwise drive him completely nuts and bring the rest of us along for the ride as a bonus.

It's one thing to be adjusting to the absence of school and a lot of the regular school-associated activities.  Then you add in the fact that many of the activities that do run year-round change days and times in the summer, but not all of them.  Throw in doctor and dentist appointments, parties, vacations, and summer camps, and every week becomes completely different.  I can understand why the kid asks me about the day's agenda every single morning.  He's trying to get a pre-emptive handle on the situation before the craziness starts.

None of this is news to me, and we've actually done pretty well this summer, all things considered.  The revelation over the last week or so is that I really need my normal routines back too!

I carry a lot of schedule-related stuff in my head during the school year, no question, but at least the kids' activities are relatively constant each week.  When they change, it is typically with the sports seasons, so I have some warning, and once they change they stay on the new system for a while.  This every-day-is-different summertime business is getting to me.   So far this summer I have completely forgotten two soccer clinics and a speech therapy appointment because they were not held on the usual days.

I've mentioned before that my brain is completely clogged with useless trivia.  Pulled the medical name for a type of eyelid cyst (chalazion) out of my ear at the pediatrician's this morning, just as an example.  However, that factoid was apparently occupying the neurological real estate required for remembering that piano lessons were moved to Monday this week.  Guess where we did not go today.

I'm ready for school to start...