She Ruins Everything . . . Perfectly

I have always been amazed at my daughters amazing ability to ruin everything I plan, even before she was born! I should have known when we tried to get 3-D images ten times and she wouldn't let us. Once she was born she would always stay on a schedule long enough for me to depend on it and plan around it and then BAM she'd completely change everything and ruin the plans, whether it was a shopping trip, a play date, a doctor's appointment, etc. When she was really little she would randomly decide she needed to eat every two hours, or she would nap all day instead of fighting sleep like normal. She then started napping at different times, or she would be whiny and fussy from teething. The switch to 1 nap a day was great because it allowed me to plan a lot better, and it put her on a much more regular routine for quite a while. Now that I'm not working, of course, a routine isn't as significant, but she's kept to it rather well. There have been several days where she's decided not to nap until 5 pm, or she's napped for about 45 minutes and then wants to nap at 8 pm, but they hadn't really disrupted anything….yet.
Her second birthday is approaching rapidly, and I've decided to try and make as much as possible to save on costs, plus it seems like fun things we can do together. Tuesday was supposed to be yucky and rainy, so I thought it might be a good time to go shopping for supplies, and if all went well we could stop at an indoor playground. Well she woke up really late, was whiny and clingy (she's working on her 2 year molars, yay) I decided it would be much easier just to keep her home and try for Wednesday. Despite not going shopping, we had a nice day at home and I was able to plan a few more craft activities for Father's Day that I thought she would enjoy. She was super cuddly, and I definitely don't mind that now that she's trying so desperately to become "Miss Independent". All in all, it was a nice, yet rainy day.
Our normal routine is that she wakes up at 9, naps from 2 to 4, and then goes to bed at 10. That gives me a nice 5 hour window to get things done in the morning, and it gives her several hours in the evening with dad after he gets home from work. Well, first she woke up late again, she fought me about eating breakfast and then, she wanted to get in the shower. I figured it wouldn't hurt and let her get in, at which point she decided she did not, in fact, want a shower and she quickly jumped out and ran through the house, naked and dripping. After chasing her down and finally getting her dressed she ran back into the bathroom and slipped and hurt her elbow. I have now learned that the only thing that makes a bruised elbow better is a Dora bandage. Then she opened the powder and 'sprinkled' it all over herself and the floor while I was cleaning up the wet bathroom. Once that was cleaned up all I had to do was her hair and we could walk out the door. Waking up at 10:30 had put me way behind schedule, and now it was after 12, but I figured if we grabbed lunch out I could still squeeze in the shopping. Well she tried to run out of the room and when I called her to come back she turned quickly and ran right into the door frame…..hard. There was an instant bump on the forehead and lots of tears. It required a frozen teething ring, which she was supposed to put on the bump, but ended up chewing on instead, and a grape icee pop (that makes any injury better). Once she was all better, she handed me the teething ring and I was able to get her hair done. I looked down and found that the teething ring had cracked and was leaking all over the table….you know, because I needed something else to clean up before we left. So once we were ready to walk out the door it was a little after 1:30 and I had about a half an hour before the little one turned into a pumpkin. We ended up going out to lunch, having a blast, and postponed our shopping trip for the evening.
I decided that we could just leave when she woke up and start shopping then. I arranged to meet my husband at the store and then we could all grab something for dinner while we were out. Well of course she ended up sleeping until after 5:30, and my husband had already left work. She woke up right before he came home and then we all left together. We had a blast shopping for items for her party, she tried on all kinds of birthday hats and tiaras, she played with maracas all around the store, she danced around on the sidewalk outside while I sneaked away to look for items for Father's Day, and we had a lovely dinner together….none of which would have happened if she hadn't decided to change my plans. Normally I always have to have a plan, and a list, and a timeline before I do things, but slowly I'm learning to let go and just go with the flow of things and everything will work out. My daughter is not quite 2 yet and she's already teaching me things, why am I not surprised?