We are late again!

I am one of "those people" that believes in the quote "If you are early you are on time, if you are on time you are late, if you are late don't bother showing up." I think it was a football coach's quote. When I worked "outside the home" I was almost always early. Work starts at 8am? I am there by 7:30 at the latest and usually 6:30 or 7:00. Flight at 8am? I was there by... you guessed it 6am. Expect the unexpected I always said. Traffic is bad... you should have left earlier. You are dressed like that because the airline lost your luggage... you should have packed a suit in your carry on.

Unfortunately with Triplets I am frequently late... or am I? See, I have this nasty habit of self imposing a schedule on us. I get this schedule in my head and if we start veering off course my first reaction is to push things along. This does not work well with three year old triplets:) I find myself hurrying to get to the... oh, pick a place, the YMCA, the Zoo, the Science Center, etc... by a certain time. Sure, I might be meeting someone but they also have kids and will definitely understand.

A perfect instance of this happened yesterday. We were headed to the YMCA and started running a bit late for my target time. Jackson then proceeded to make a few "bad choices." He tripped his sister as she came down the stairs and then hit William in the van. It was Jackson's day to swim but I made an audible and told him he was not swimming that day. Yep, you guessed it, he expressed his extreme displeasure with my decision:) So I decided to give him a choice. He could let Addison swim that day and he swim when it was her turn or no one would swim and he would miss his turn for the week. Keep in mind this discussion took fifteen minutes. He finally made what I think was the best choice and Addison got to swim. But all that made us 30 minutes "late." Late for what, I thought. So what if we eat lunch later, or nap later, or whatever later.

Don't get me wrong, I am NOT giving up on my punctuality but I am not going to drive my kids crazy by some invisible time line I create.

Punctuality is the stern virtue of men of business, and the graceful courtesy of princes.
Edward G. Bulwer-Lytton

Punctuality is a virtue, if you don't mind being lonely.
Unknown

Elitism - It's lonely at the top. But it's comforting to look down upon everyone at the bottom.
Larry Kersten

Al