Making things work by taking a step back

Over the weekend, Little Spoon's brother was scheduled to come back to be in his friend's wedding on Saturday and then to meet us that night in preparation for flying out to school the next morning. There was just one problem: We didn't know when he was going to be coming back in town, and we had plans to go to Little Spoon's friend's Fourth of July party. En route to the party, we got a text message from her brother asking where he should meet us!

After some frantic back and forth between him, Little Spoon, and their younger sister, we finally hatched a plan to make sure he wouldn't have to be alone for the Fourth while still ensuring that Little Spoon would get to be with her friend. I offered to drive up and meet her brother off the highway and get some chairs for us to sit in back at home while Little Spoon could stay at the party. I pulled into the parking lot of the agreed-upon place perhaps 30 seconds before the van containing her brother came up, so the timing ended up working out nicely. After the party, we came back to the house, watched some Robot Chicken, and got some good sleep before Little Spoon took him to the airport the next day.

The moral of the story for me was that given a bit of time to think about things, we can handle problems before us well. However, if we insist on rushing into something without thinking it through, more problems will likely arise. Taking a breath to think and strategize together is a good thing.