The Best Laid Men Often Plan of Mice and Go Astray

Uh... I mean, "The best laid plans of mice and men often go astray"

Plans. Yes, once upon a time I had plans. I planned to graduate from high school and go to college. I planned to graduate from college, get married (once) and get a job. I planned to pop out two normal kids who would go to school and then move out at the age of 18 at which time I would have tons of freedom and horses... Of course I planned to have horses the whole time.

Ahhh - the best laid plans...

To date, approximately none of my plans have worked out quite the way I planned. But honestly, so far everything has worked out.

So amazingly, I planned on having two normal kids. When you look at all the statistics, most people can expect to have "normal" kids. I doubt there are too many people out there that actually plan to have un-normal kids. (I realize un-normal isn't a word, but it still seems to get the point across, no?) One in about every 800 live births results in a baby with Down syndrome. One in every 150 girls is diagnosed with Aspergers and between 3 and 7 percent of school age children are diagnosed with ADHD. I wonder what the chances were that I would get one of each? I guess what this means is that I should be playing the lottery a lot more often!

To start off with, I figured I'd get pregnant within a few months of trying. Yeah... try, about 29 months. Of course when my first was born, I planned to breast feed. THAT didn't quite work out (see: http://www.fauxva.com/ch12.html ). I didn't plan on getting divorced (twice) nor did I think there would be 8 years between kid 1 and kid 2. In fact, kid 3 was never planned - she just... happened... with a little help from a French maid outfit...

But I digress...

So a few things happened in my life that weren't part of my great initial plan. Yet I wouldn't change a thing (other than the current lack of horses in my life and maybe a marriage or two). I will never know firsthand what it is like to parent a "normal" child, but that's OK. I have no idea how old I'll be when my last kid leaves the nest, but that's OK too. If everything had gone just as I had planned, I would have missed out on so many wonderful surprises and so many cool life lessons.

Every so often my mother will still ask me "so what are your plans for this weekend?" Honestly... who knows?  But one thing is for sure - what ever is meant to happen will happen! And it WILL all work out!