The Best Laid Schemes of Mice and Men

Whether you want to quote Robert Burns or John Steinbeck, either way, they were both right.

(Warning, there is a word at the bottom of this post that is not-suitable-for-children.)

My schemes (plans) today were so carefully laid out. We were taking my three-year old grandson to an Easter Egg Hunt in the morning (yes, I am atheist, but he is only three and hasn't decided what he is yet so we like to expose him to different choices) and then this afternoon, I was going to work on a scrapbook album with an online crafting class.

First, my grandson seemed very happy to be out in the park and was dancing around, seemingly very happy. His verbal communication skills are still minimal; he talks, just not in a language we understand. But then we had to sit on the bleachers while they explained "Why We Were There" aka "What Easter is All About". I'm not sure he really understood the woman who was explaining that the red M&Ms were there to symbolise Jesus's blood - but I'm sure he would have been grossed out if he did understand. It's candy, people, and these are little kids.

Side Note: Most of the other kids were mainly complaining about being cold during this part, and trying to keep warm. They didn't want to know what the red M&Ms meant either. Why did so many people dress their kids in lacy t-shirts when it's sixty degrees with a cold wind blowing? And not bring a jacket? But I digress.

Still, for whatever reason, he chose that moment to decide he wanted too leave. He started crying and got up and took my hand, so I took him back to the picnic area and tried to figure out what he wanted.

Apparently, he wanted to go home, because he kept taking my hand and leading me to the parking lot. Our car was behind another car and he couldn't see it and that's when he started crying in earnest. My husband tried to get him to calm down and hunt for candy-filled plastic eggs - the speech was apparently over and that's why we were there, after all - but he didn't want any part of it. He wanted to go home. I have some pictures - I made sure to take my camera along to get lots of glorious pictures of my grandson and the other kids enjoying the beautiful Spring day.

I got one picture of him smiling before the bleacher incident and in the rest he's crying or trying to get us to go home. After some discussion and analyzing of what he was actually doing while we were there and after we left, my husband and I think that he has an ear infection and the wind was bothering him.

The next plan for the day was a craft project gone awry, which you can read about on my craft blog here. That went only slightly better than the Easter Egg Hunt. There was no crying (yea!) but there was a mess and a migraine (boo!)

So Burns and Steinbeck were right. Never set too much store in your perfectly laid-out plans because something is bound to get fucked up somewhere along the line.