A Good Plan, but We Blewett

It was a Good Plan. We’d get up, have a lazy breakfast, carefully pack for our trip to Ellensburg, and hit the road at about 11:00 a.m. After the first big snowfall of the year, we wanted plenty of time to travel over icy Blewett Pass and prepare for our evening event. The following day, we’d drive back home, unpack, refill our luggage, and take off for Vancouver.

Mr. Wright’s responsibilities as president of the Washington Association of REALTORS® do keep us on the move; this week in particular. I’m a planner by nature, and I always feel more productive and secure when a Good Plan is in place. Mr. Wright does not share my planning obsession and, in the interest of compromise, “winging it” often becomes known as a Good Plan.

Today was a perfect example. The lazy breakfast turned into an opportunity for Curlytop and Snugglebug to mash eggs into their hair; a beauty tip which, I’ve heard, adds shine and body but nonetheless required an impromptu bath for both toddlers. Time lost: 20 minutes.

Part of my compulsion to plan every minute of the day stems from the fact that, since becoming a parent, I am well aware of what can go wrong in the span of a minute. While I showered downstairs, Mr. Wright started drawing a bath for the toddlers and returned to the kitchen to wash up the breakfast dishes. Somehow, he forgot to turn the water off, and a flood ensued. By the time Daddy finished the dishes, there was more water on the floor than in the tub, and immediate action had to be taken to dam the river threatening to flow into the living room. Time lost: 17 minutes.

I got the babies dressed after their bath, and as I searched the house for two pairs of elusive tiny shoes, Curlytop and Snugglebug quietly let themselves out the door. They were so sneaky that neither of the adults saw or heard them leave. Since Mommy was still searching for shoes, the girls went on their walkabout in their sock-feet.

By the time I located the final shoe (time lost: 12 minutes) and realized the babies were gone, I was in a dead panic. Mr. Wright, who had been diligently packing, calmly responded to my escalating hysterics by spilling the contents of his suitcase (time lost: four minutes) and sprinting out into the snow with bare feet and without the benefit of a shirt. He ran up and down the street looking for them, then returned to the house, where he found them in the fenced back yard, each nibbling a handful of fresh snow. “Ice cream, Daddy!” Curlytop exclaimed. Time lost: eight minutes.

Daddy returned with a shivering toddler under each arm and a collection of frozen tootsies encased in wet socks. I stripped their little feet and set about finding perhaps the last two matching pairs of baby socks on the planet in the Sock Basket – another Good Plan that got out of control – that contains all of the lone socks that make it through the dryer. Time lost: eight minutes. The babies helped. Additional time: six minutes.

At this point, Mr. Wright began grousing about being late, so I hastily tossed my evening dress, a change of clothes and my makeup into a suitcase and loaded the kids into the car. Twenty minutes down the road, my husband casually asked what shoes I planned to wear to the event. Oops. Time lost: 40 minutes.

Nearly two hours behind schedule, we tackled Blewett Pass. Even with its daunting “compact snow and ice” and “traction tire requirement,” Blewett was little more than a mild but necessary annoyance. The Wrights know what it really means to live dangerously – we have seven children.

I have absolute faith that our trip to Vancouver will be much smoother. Mr. Wright tells me he has a Good Plan.