Unplanned Play Date Ruins Child’s Schedule for Next Seven Months

Springfield (March 31, 2016) – A spur-of-the-moment play date for her four-year old daughter Addysyn has thrown the schedule of area mother, Sue Morrison, into complete disarray for at least the next seven months.  The very rigid, admitted type A personality, Morrison let her good senses fall by the wayside as she allowed a non-planned activity render her meticulously organized calendar useless for more than a half year in advance.

Morrison, a former corporate recruiter, has been planning out her daughter’s life nearly the moment Addysyn exited her womb.  After being cleaned off by the attending nurse, the newborn was placed gently onto the new mother’s bosom who ordered to her husband, Harold, that “this is the time every single day when the baby will be getting a bath because we can’t disrupt her schedule.  This is what she’s used to!”  In addition to her rigid bathtime routine, Addysyn has a set time for all meals and snacks on both weekdays and weekends.

After bumping into a pre-school friend of Addysyn and her mother between Addysyn’s tumbling class and Mandarin Chinese lesson, the friend’s mother insisted on a play date later that afternoon.  Normally unrelenting, Morrison gave in after several minutes of “please, please, please” from both girls.  Upon returning to her car, Morrison scolded her young offspring letting her know full well that she is never to put her on the spot for an unplanned activity.  Little did Morrison realize that this impromptu meeting would result in a scheduling fiasco that NASA scientists would struggle to comprehend.

“The afternoon play date pushed back her bath time so she’ll be going to bed later now so she’ll have to skip her computer literacy class tomorrow morning since she won’t have exactly eleven hours of sleep.  I’ll have to reschedule that class and they only have makeups on Fridays which interferes with her rhythmic gymnastics class which she has to attend in order to be able to dance in the recital at the end of the year.  I’ll have to see if they can do a private session after pre-school next Tuesday but that will bump a play date that I’ve had on the schedule for two months.  I can move that to the month after but she already has a play date with that girl that week and I have a strict rule that Addysyn can only have a play date with a certain child once in a week so she doesn’t become too attached to any one friend so I’ll push out the makeup into late June but then camp starts. Maybe if I move her into the 10:30 slot for Soccer-rama instead of the 9:00 I may be able to still have time for her to get to her piano lesson assuming traffic that day isn’t too bad.  I’ll call the town planner to see if there’s any scheduled road work.   I can do this.  I can do this.  I can do this.  Holy crap!!! I forgot about her snack time the third Thursday of May!” stated Morrison.

Local psychiatrist Dr. Evelyn Gooding has seen patients like this before. “Planning is healthy to a certain extent but some parents, like Ms. Morrison go a tad overboard creating a child that is so used to routine it’s hard to break, even as an adult.”

“My mom was very strict her plans for me and look how I turned out.  I don’t think Dr. Gooding knows what she’s talking about.   Maybe I can get an appointment with her on July 8^th from 3:30 to 4:15.  That’s the only slot Addysyn and I have left,” commented Morrison.