Schedules/Type A Personality

I am impatient. I have a 3 year old. Bad Mixture.

I try so hard to let her figure things out for herself, such as putting on socks, and brushing her teeth etc., BUT when she takes too long and I need to be somewhere, I have to jump in and help, but in true 3 year old fashion, she does not want any help! Then the fight is on...so anywhere, where was I going with this? Oh yeah....schedules.

I live by a schedule. We get up, eat breakfast, get showered, dressed (takes awhile, there is the newborn, the 3yo and me..and read above regarding 3yr old, lol) and then it's darn near lunch time, but we have things to do, it may be an appointment, groceries, a play date, or what have you, but it's in a specific time frame, because then it's nap time (bless my child for still napping!) which must occur between 1 and 2 pm, or she will be CRANKY and sleep too late, which messed with bedtime, which in turn messes with the next day! So to keep things running smoothly in my boot camp, I mean house, we MUST stick tot he schedule!

There are of course exceptions....sometimes we eat lunch early or *gasp* LATE, and there is the occasional day we skip a nap, for a DARN GOOD REASON, but we like the schedule. My daughter thrives on it. I think a lot of the reason I like to stick to a schedule is because I absolutely detest being late. Hate it. And I am annoyed by people who use having kids as and excuse to be late. Yes, shit happens, or puke happens, but on an average day, I like to get where I am going at the proper time.

So what brought this up? Well, our whole day is out of whack! Last week my Mother In Law decided she wanted my 3yo and her 5yo(almost 6yo) cousin to have a sleepover....together...in the same bed! Ok lady! Chelsea is so used to falling asleep alone. She won't fall asleep with me, not with Daddy, no one. She needs her alone time to wind down, look at book, whatever she wants, but ALONE. I decided to let MIL have her, whatever, not my problem if she is up till midnight, ha ha! So here is how it went down.... MIL wanted her early afternoon on Thursday, no nap, so that she may fall asleep earlier...sure! I dropped her off at 2pm. MIL called at 10pm, she finally fell asleep, ha ha! So already she is short 2.5 hours of sleep from her nap, and 2 hours off her regular bedtime...total 4.5 hours. The the kids get up at 5:45...ha! That is 2 hours and 15 minutes earlier than normal....add that to the 4.5? Total of 6 and 3/4 hours short of sleep. Oh my.

I went to pick her up at 11:30 this morning, boy was she CRANKY. So we went thru the drive thru at McDonald's (as my apology for making her sleepover at MIL's, lol) and came home, ate till her eyes were closing, put jammies on and crawled into bed. Poor girl went right to sleep. BUT, I have to wake hey by no later than 4, or bedtime will be ruined, lol.

Am I nuts? Are my schedules too rigid? I don't think so, it works for us.