Waiting

I'm becoming inclined to no longer tell my kids what we are going to do for the day. I've always believed that if the kids know the plan and hear it several times, it helps them set proper expectations for what will be happening in their lives and thus it reduces tantruming and other such bothersome problems. A new side effect I'm finding of informing Ben of our plans is that he has begun waiting for things. Ben has always been a glass half empty sort of a guy. Constant questions come from the poor guy asking, "What if...(worst case scenario occurs)? What will we do?" Ugh. It gets old. On the day we were to leave for Buffalo to visit cousin Parker, the kids were both up by 7 am. We planned to leave around 1 pm. They got breakfast, dressed and brushed teeth. Then they began to wait for us to leave about 8 am. I told them over and over and over that it was going to be a really long time, we weren't leaving until after lunch, daddy wasn't home yet so we couldn't go, etc. No big deal. Ben spent the better part of 5 hours sitting on the rocking chair in my room watching me pack suitcases and take care of Jacob. How boring is that? He could not be persuaded to go play and have fun. He's done this several other times the last two weeks. Friday morning we told the kids that at dinner time we were going to have Daniel and his baby sister come play for a while. From about 10 am the kids quit playing and began waiting. This time they wasted time waiting for about 7 hours. How un-fun can a day be? It kills me to see him just lay on the floor doing nothing for an hour. Weirdo.