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This was the lesson that I got to teach my child today. Planning is essential in life for many different occassions. My husband, and his entire family for that matter, have a severe aversion to planning anything. The last time his parents came to visit, my husband informed me two days before their arrival that they had failed to book a hotel. Guess who ended up having to scramble to find one? Yes, me. They had not bothered to book anything and my husband had no idea what to do and became paralyzed with confusion.

So today, my husband had a job interview that he has known about for a week. Luckily he is not unemployed but his job isnt going well so he is out looking. We went to buy a suit, since he has been getting multiple calls. This was the extent of my knowledge, therefore I figured, he had the rest under control. Last night, the only crisis that I knew about before I went to bed was that he did not have a print out of his resume and had to run to Kinkos at 11pm. This morning, I woke up to do my normal morning routine as I was not informed of anything else only to find out when I arrived from the gym at 7am to start my shower/hair/makeup, that he had to leave 1 hour earlier than usual. Now being that he is usually the one who gets our son ready, makes breakfast, and takes the dogs for a walk, this is HUGE news to me. I have no clue how, at this point, I am going to get my son dressed, fed and to school on time, walk dogs and much less look presentable at work. I did manage, he had to help some, but I pointed out that this is huge and he needs to inform me of these things at the very least the night before as I would have skipped the gym. He still had to iron his suit and shirt, shave, and shower. But not only did this run him late, he had not printed out directions from MapQuest or anything the day before!! Already late leaving, he was scrambling to get his laptop up for this info, which of course, decided to crash. This resulted in my having to go downstairs to my car and get my GPS. He left 1/2 hour late and I was late to work.

I dont think that anyone in my husband's family ever taught him how to plan for anything ever, seeing as this type of thing is more common with him that not and it drives me absolutely insane. It leaves me as always being the one that has to run and manage everything unless I want complete chaos. I took this opportunity to teach my son how to plan. I asked him what daddy could have done differently to leave on time. He could have printed out his resume and directions (or asked me to) the day before while at work. He could have ironed his suit the night before. He could have informed me that he had to leave an hour early so that I could have helped prepare the night before and/or skipped the gym. None of this ever occurred to him and he may blow the interview because of it. I then had my son repeat a few times "When you fail to plan, you plan to fail". He thought it sounded funny and laughed but I think that he got it or at least I ahve planted the seed.