Pop n Boo's Revenge

When you grow up, I hope you have children Just ... Like ... You!

I have an undeserved reputation for being a "planner" at my parents' house. It all stems from the fact that I get hungry for dinner before Mom and Dad do. Left to their own devices, dinner happens around 7 or 8pm. I got accustomed to dinner at 5 or so at college. I quickly learned that the best way to get dinner happening when I wanted it was to go to Mom about 3pm and say, "So, Mom, what's the plan for dinner?" She would send me to Dad. (That gave me permission to invade his office, you see.) "So, Dad, what's the plan for dinner?" I maaaay have also sometimes asked them what the plan was more generally, trying to find out what they thought was happening that night and if there was any hope of gaming. Could be.

My parents, now Pop and Boo, came away from me asking that every day, all summer and every visit, thinking that I like to plan. Can't imagine why ;)  . Joy is ever so much more of a planner than I am, though. The odd thing is that she likes to plan, but "isn't good at it" and I don't like to plan but I'm good at it -- I think mostly so I can get it done quickly. When we got together with my brother and his wife last year for our anniversaries [right] I discovered that they wanted a Real Plan, complete with time schedules of when we'd arrive at each attraction, compared to my Vague Notion of a Plan that said we'd get there when we get there and do the most important things first. Joy says, "I like Steve and Emie's idea of planning. I'm just not very successful at it. They made the trip much more enjoyable." So I think I'm a flexible guy.

WELL. Enter Hyrum and Joy.

Joy says to me, that she needs my help scheduling her time with Hyrum when he gets back from school. "He does well with structure." So we sat down two weeks ago Sunday night for and I helped her write a Real Schedule, with actual time lines and activities and Structure. She loves it. She lives it. It works. "I'm even becoming a little bit flexible with it."

"At snack time Thursday ... Snack time has become a time to talk about what is going to happen in the rest of our day or things about school.

Hyrum asked Joy if they could play with something. Joy told him, no, not yet. After snack time was Jesus time (when they would read his scriptures and watch a video) and after Jesus time was Hyrum Choose.

"So they he said: 'After choice time?'
"I said, 'After Hyrum Choose is Free Time, and you can play with xxxx then.'
"He said, 'After Free Time?'
"'Is dinner.'
"'After dinner?'
"Family fun time.
"'After family fun time?'
....

And they went on like that through SUNDAY! Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and through Church, he asked "After ....?" and Mommy told him. It was quite the little conversation. She commented at the time something to the effect of - Boy, no sooner do I get a schedule put together but he detects it and wants to know it!

Today we're in church. He asked to eat his lunch. I said no, not yet. It's time for the sacrament. You can eat lunch after the sacrament.
He said, 'After lunch?'
I anticipated: After lunch you go to nursery, and after nursery we drop off the Furies, and you go home and have snack time and a nap, then we have home teachers coming over and ....
He was happy.

"Oh, but you misinterepet. Because there's time between lunch and nursery when we're still in Sacrament meeting and..."
Yes, dear, I am still not the planner you are. I do not account for each minute.
"Yes, but he is expecting to go to nursery RIGHT after lunch, and it's been a problem."

So we have a literal son who cares about scheduling and a flexible Dad who helps schedule everyone else but wants to not have to go into detail and ....

The Curse Works!