It's Tuesday morning, somewhere around 8am. Laurel has already been to the Dr. 3 times in the previous 5 days and was diagnosed with an upper respiratory infection (so we had to do a breathing treatment every 4 hours to treat that) and an incredibly resistant double ear infection (pink stuff diagnosed to treat that). The breathing treatments caused hyper activity and inability to sleep and we discovered today that the pink stuff was doing nothing to treat the ears. So, needless to say, I am tired. Tuesday mornings I am usually getting both kids ready and packed up to walk out the door by 8:40. I drop Micah at preschool at 8:45 and Laurel at MDO at 9. This particular morning, Laurel wasn't going to MDO but it was crazy nonetheless. Enough excuses.
As I am trying to help Micah get dressed, as usual, he is telling me no on every outfit I suggest. We land on his 2 sizes to big not so cute royal blue school t-shirt with some very wrinkly khaki shorts. I didn't even comb his hair.
As we are sitting in the carpool line, I am looking at the other kids walking into school and I literally say, out loud, "wow, these people really go all out for school". All of the kids were so dressed up: fancy dresses with big bows, boys had on loafers and belts, the whole 9 yards.
Fast forward a few hours and I pull up the calendar on my phone to add something and up pops "Micah School Pictures". No I didn't. Yes, I did. I forgot it was picture day. I am that mom. Laugh all you want and say that I am being dramatic but I always thought I would not be that mom. I used to judge
that mom. And now I am
that mom. What makes it 10x worse is that last week, Micah was supposed to wear blue or red on Monday. What color did he wear? Green. He was supposed to wear green on Tuesday and we just so happened to luck out that he had on his hideous neon green t-shirt. The teacher gives us this "what's happening" sheet with all of this info on it and there it is on my fridge and I look at it every day and I still cannot pull it together.
I was quite distraught. Like called David having a meltdown distraught. Why you might ask? Because (no offense mom), my mom forgot picture day in first grade and I still remember it VIVIDLY. You can flip through all of my school pictures and first grade sticks out like a sore thumb. Every other year I had on a dress with my hair done with a bow and everything. Not first grade though. I remember that day. I walk in and everyone else is all dolled up and I look like this:
Cute.
I cannot wait to see how Micah's picture turned out.
So, I am that mom. I am the perfectionist who just can't be the perfect mom. I am learning that parenting is all about making mistakes and moving on. Perfection is NOT possible (I chant this to myself 1000 times a day)- especially when we are talking about parenting. Hopefully, I'll have myself a little more pulled together by first grade. Doubtful, though. I am working on being ok with that.
