“Why?” you ask. Because I somehow managed to miss the 1,000 messages that the teacher sent over the last 2 months via handouts and Class Dojo that indicated that the school group was leaving an hour before the start of a typical school day. Every single one of them. I missed every, single, one…EXCEPT the last handout, which my child handed to me at 7:30am on the day of the field trip, and which also indicated that the bus was currently pulling out of the school parking lot AT THAT VERY MOMENT.
I briefly hoped maybe it was just a typo, and they actually meant to say 8:30am, but alas, my hope was in vain. Thus began the hurried rush of cancelling my dental appointment, and throwing presentable clothes on the kids (and possibly myself), and grabbing electronic tablets (each of which was completely dead and needed charging) in order to drive AN HOUR AND FORTY MINUTES ONE WAY to Durham to catch up with the school field trip.
Within the first 10 minutes of the drive, the first grader (hilariously,
in his 7 year-old mind) made his baby sister shriek and cry on three separate occasions,
and I snapped. And I yelled. LOUDLY.
And he stomped off to the back of the van with arms folded across his
chest in protest. (Yes, you read that
correctly. I drive a van large enough
that a child can literally stomp off to find his own zone, even while the vehicle
is in motion.)
And then the tears began.
My tears, not his. I sobbed heavily
for 30 minutes straight, feeling like a massive failure that can’t even keep
track of a simple field trip. I was
heart-broken to have disappointed my child by missing such an important detail,
and I had no idea how it could have happened.
For the love of all things holy, WHY did I not put this field
trip on my Google calendar??? I would
have looked for this detail if I had added it.
I put everything on my calendar. My
every move is on my calendar. If it isn’t
on a Google calendar somewhere, did it really happen?
The answer is ‘No.’
If it isn’t on this girl’s Google calendar, IT WILL NOT HAPPEN. Case in point.
I felt defeated, like I was in over my head, and if I couldn’t
handle this, then how on earth was I ever going to make it through the next
several years, knowing that it’s only going to get busier once all 6 children
are in school and sports. And was I even
headed to the right place now, because If I couldn’t read the time right on the
permission slip, how could I ever be trusted to correctly read the
location? And will the Google calendar
app even allow me to add more events to my jam-packed days than are already on there right
now??
I was frustrated and embarrassed to have messed up, and I
was discouraged that I would ever be able to keep up with life in general. I
was worried that I wouldn’t be able to make this day right for my child, and I
was thinking about how much money it was going to cost now to make it right, which
was why I had decided not to attend this trip in the first place. And I seriously wanted to just throw in the
towel, because I was pretty sure that there was no way I was going to be able
to sustain it all.
And so I called my Mom.
And she sympathized with me, and told me that it was all going to work
out fine. And she put my heart at ease,
and calmed me down. And then she transferred
money to me to pay for admission and snacks and all of it so that I wouldn’t be
burdened by cost.
I told her that I seriously hope that I can be exactly like her
for my children someday. She told me I already
was a better Mom than her. I told her that
wasn’t possible. Because it isn’t. I have an awesome Mom. And I hung up feeling refreshed and
encouraged, like I always do after talking to her in times like this.
I apologized to my son for snapping, and he was sitting back
in the front row within minutes. We
arrived at the museum shortly after the school buses did, and we (sheepishly) met
up with his teacher and class, although he opted to just spend the day touring
with me and the toddlers instead of the rest of the group. And we got to do all the extras that he
wouldn’t have originally gotten to do; we rode the train, and had ice cream and
chips and sodas, and picked out gifts from the gift shop and brought gifts home
for the siblings. He asked me if we
could bring the whole family here one day before we leave for Ohio because he liked
this place so much. And when I asked him
on the (long) drive home if he enjoyed his field trip, his response was
immediate and enthusiastic, and he loved that day.
It’s so, so easy in this day and time to compare ourselves
to the fractional details we see of the parents around us, and to think they’ve
got it all perfectly figured out and that they never make mistakes, or miss
fieldtrips, or raise their voices, or question if they’re doing anything right. If I’ve ever given that impression, let me be
the first to debunk that right here. There
are no perfect moms (though mine’s pretty darn close), but there are a lot of
great moms that mess up and ask for forgiveness and do their best to turn bad
days into good ones, and inadvertently demonstrate to their kids some pretty
incredible life lessons at the same time.
So if (and when) you go through your version of a missed-field-trip kind-of
day, let me be the first to remind you that you’re among good company.
High five. You’re my
tribe, and I’m your fan.
Happy Mother’s Day to you all. And Happy Mother’s Day to my Mom, who will
always be the type of mother I hope to be one day. I love you, Mom.
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