A little piece of typical

The plans were in place. The stars were aligned. My husband had the day off work. The babysitter was lined up. The company Christmas party was a GO! A Saturday night spent enjoying ourselves among adults, eating free food and winning prizes...I could hardly believe that it all came together.

Then the phone rang.

The babysitter was sick. But her younger sister graciously offered to take her place. Which was fine with me and my husband...but Boo was devastated! It was about 11am when I told him there was a change in plans. We were supposed to leave at 5pm. I was trying to balance his need for advance notice of a plan change with his tendency to obsess and fret over the change if given too much time to think about it. We were in the car running some errands. Tears streamed down his little face and my heart was breaking. I HATE that something so seemingly simple can be so difficult for him to cope with. He kept repeating that he didn't want A to come, he wanted N. He said that it wasn't fair, and that he doesn't like it when plans change. He says changing plans is like breaking a promise.

Over the next half hour or more, he would calm down, and then ramp up again in cycles. He asked if Daddy could stay home with him instead. I told him Daddy was going to the party. He asked if Grams could come. I told him it was too late for Grams to be out. He said "It's too late for Mammo too, right?" Yes dear, and the tears came again. Eventually he stopped worrying about it, and started watching the clock. He managed to get excited about A coming over. When she arrived, he took her to his room and they started playing with his hotwheels. By the time we left, he was too involved with the babysitter to even say goodbye.

I warned the sitter that bedtime could be difficult without me there, that he is very resistant to going to bed without his mom. He usually won't even go to bed for Mammo! I told her to try, but not to worry about it if he really fought against it. I was prepared to find a very tired little boy waiting for me at the end of the night. Daddy and I had a wonderful time at the party. I enjoyed being out with my sweetheart for the first time in a long while. We arrived back home at about 10:30 and found our sweet Boo sound asleep in his bed! I was astounded. I asked A if he had given her any trouble and she said that everything went great. She said he didn't want to go to bed at first, but she told him it would be very late before I got home. He finally agreed to lay down, telling her "I don't want you to lay in my bed with me because you're not my mom." She checked on him about 10 minutes later and he was sound asleep. And it was only about 45 minutes later than his normal bedtime.

Sunday morning at church, both of A's parents asked me about the evening, and I told them that they are not allowed to move away at least until Boo is grown. It feels pretty amazing after five and a half years to have an actual babysitter (two, even!) whom I can call on when we want to go out, and not feel like I have to depend solely on the generosity of family members. We've picked up one more little piece of "typical" on our road through Boo's life. Nothing else needs to show up under the tree to make this one of the best Christmases ever for me!