Ch ch ch changes

I looked at my life plan again yesterday morning, then put it in the shredder. That's the fifth time this week, and Week One of my Life Plan hasn't even started yet.

Life plans are crap, anyhow. Changes come upon us swift and unpredictable. One minute you're walking along tra la la and the next you're balanced in a canoe dangling chicken liver over the side. Hurry up, and catch that piranha! Your fellow diners are hungry back at camp! Don't ask me how that transformation takes place. All I know is that it happens in real life as well as in your unconscious.

Sudden change is common round here, which is why I tend no longer to make life plans. One day I was walking along all tra la la and then OHMYGOD what is that pregnancy? How did that happen? No one told me! Who knew these things?

Then everything started to go wrong, or right, depending on your point of view, when at the first scan the sonographer asked, Have you taken Clomid?

I never knew Clomid. Who is she? Some person I have been taking to places? Suddenly everyone is asking about Clomid, like I am an idiot, and I have been taking her places and leaving her there and she was my responsibility! At one point a young nurse comes in and shakes her head at me, like in pity at my outstretched body and stupid expression, as if she is saying You are so dumb, how are you going to cope with triplets?

Well that revelation brought about some more big changes round here. A complete reversal of Life Plan number 456. Now I am a stay-at-home mama. And you can see what that means in terms of lifestyle. Not surprising then that I have zero tolerance of the stay-at-home mama stereotype. You know, the one where we all stand around in 1950s pinnies, baking cakes, reigning supreme.

If triplets and a career change weren't enough of a turnabout from gadabout goodtime girl, there's our home educating decision to plunge us into the waters of change. Let's do that, head first with eyes closed! Now I tentatively plan only the day and week ahead merely to keep a grip on reality.

But on I go, through it all, weathering those changes. I keep my fortune cookie selection ready to hand: my favourites say Let not great ambition overshadow small success, and From little seeds grow big trees.

Early on I fastened onto one in particular, and that was Leave behind the life you planned and embrace the life you have. I don't know which Chinese meal that came from but, in the absence of religion, it has served me pretty well for several years and through various upheavals.

So when Dig, that absent husband I keep somewhere on the other side of the planet, calls me from Hong Kong today and says, OK I have signed a lease on a house. It has enough bedrooms for you and the children, so I'll book the flights for August, shall I? then yes, life just changed once more. Whether I can embrace it is another matter altogether.