When Your Ducks get Kicked out of Their Row

This morning began well. I rose before the children, made my coffee, and settled in for Bible study and prayer. Breakfast went well. The kids were in relatively pleasant moods. I had a general idea of where my day needed to go. My ducks were in a row.

And then... the dreaded AND THEN...

Perhaps I am not the only one to begin the day with one plan, and somewhere after I've settled on that plan, things go awry. I've learned that there are three duck-movers in life that tend to mess up my plans...

A Bad Plan This plan goes down simply because it is poorly formed, or not formed at all. A badly planned day means I'm running errands when I should be prepping dinner, and now I'm stressed and my toddlers are hungry and crabby. Another way I hurt myself with bad planning is not leaving enough time to get us out of the house. This brings out Screaming Momma who gets a migraine repeating to Toddler A that he needs to sit down! while Toddler B wants to buckle her own car seat and it takes 5 minutes- and the only reason Momma is letting Toddler B buckle herself anyway is because the meltdown is too sad to handle (not that this has happened to me or anything, this is purely hypothetical). If I had just planned for 5 more minutes in my leaving-time then I could be a "yes" mom and allow my daughter to buckle herself and we'd both be happy. And on time.

If those pesky ducks get out of order and it's not because of poor planning, it might be because of...

Predictable Externals If you have children (or a pet, or a husband) there are many little things that shove those ducks aside. These predictable things might be tantrums, burnt dinner, or missing ingredients for dinner, a phone call that goes longer than you meant, a school work meltdown, a spilled drink, an extra long or extra short nap, hubby late for dinner, and so on. Things that are a part of life but not always a part of every day. A lot of these examples are "small things" that with a little creativity, patience, and discipline, I can often recapture the plan and line those ducks back up (sans a couple missing feathers). I keep trying to remember that these are the teachable moments, the times where I bond even more with my kids and husband, and develop godly character in my life.

But then there are...

Unpredictable Externals And here is where my story continues. We dropped my husband's car off at the shop on Saturday; it was ready last night but we forgot to go pick it up. This morning, I desperately need to go grocery shopping. I know that when we run out of peanut butter, we're past due! I was just about to get ready to go, when we remembered that we were a one car household at the moment. That was unpredictable external number 1. Okay, I simply reverted to Plan B: I decided we could make it on the few things I had left in the house (instant pancake mix, anyone?) until tomorrow. So now hubby was getting ready to leave for the day when unpredictable external number 2 hit, the power went out. I heard our entire neighborhood was without power for a couple of hours. You cannot open the refrigerator, use the microwave, or cook when you don't have electricity. Our dilemma was, if my husband left with our only vehicle, I couldn't even run out for fast food with my kids (it was near lunch time and we had no clue how long the power would be off). And there before my eyes my little ducks ran around- out of order, and out of control- while I quickly came up with a Plan C.

There really is no way to plan for everything, but I have learned that I can plan to be flexible. In this way, I am honoring God with more patience. Another way to survive crooked-line-ducks is to find humor or at least joy in every situation. Things went badly for me today, and I got nothing I wanted accomplished, but it snowed! And for me, that is a huge joy!

So find those gems hidden in every situation and dwell on those, because no matter how much you yell at those ducks, they do not line up in response. I would know, I've tried.

My kids and I ended up driving hubby to work (he's a pastor) and then raiding his stash of sandwich supplies for PB&J. We also got to play with the nursery toys, which are fresher than our own, so therefore more fun!

Stick with it Momma's, your ducks are not the most important thing in your life, your family is. And I know you're doing a great job!