I made a mistake yesterday. I got my two-year-old daughter’s hopes up about something that changed. And those of you moms out there know how that can end up.

Badly.

My husband was set to fly home from Europe last night. He was getting in at 7pm and I was going to take my daughter with me to get him. A fun reunion after so much chaos in our family over the past few weeks.

The mistake I made was I TOLD HER. I told her he was coming home that night and that we were going to pick him up from the airport after dinner. I informed her of the plans too far in advance of it actually happening.

Now those of you who have kids know the problem with this. Plans can (and often will!) change. Especially in the music industry! I’ve experienced this too often myself. Before kids. The bus breaks down. Flight gets cancelled. Another show is booked. It can and does happen.

Oops. BIG oops.

I usually never give her specifics on when daddy will be home. Never. Because how do you explain to a two-year-old who has told her teacher at school 18 times her plans to pick up her daddy after dinner that his flight was delayed?

But that’s exactly what happened. His flight was delayed til a much much later arrival time. Uh oh.

At first it was 9 pm and I seriously considered still taking her. It would be well past her 7:30 pm bedtime, but maybe that was better than the alternative. But then the flight got delayed later and later. So she couldn’t go. And wouldn’t get to see him until the next morning. And I felt bad. Real bad. Poor little girl was so darn excited. And here I had to let her down.

But we survived the disappointment. She was still just as excited, if not more excited, to see daddy this morning. And I learned my lesson!

So, tell me, how do you handle the question of when daddy is coming home?