While you are running around this school year trying to keep up with all of the other mommies, I want you to think of me. When you are worrying about making sure your kids have a cute outfit on for school, I want you to think of me. When you are stressing about making sure you are doing everything as the homeroom mom, I want you to think of me. Anytime you feel you are not doing enough, I want you to think of me.
A couple of years ago, the walk-through at my 1st Grader’s elementary school was a complete madhouse. There were younger siblings running around, parents “talking” loudly to be heard over the kids and nervous elementary students flittering between friends they hadn’t seen all summer. Amid this chaos, we were supposed to find cubbies, locate school desks and sort out school supplies.
Somehow we managed to stumble our way through all of the steps. We were trying to make our way out of the school when we came across the school t-shirt sale. I stopped to purchase a new shirt for school spirit days when my preschooler son decided to start wailing on the older one. While physically separating the two I purchased a shirt and then shooed the crazy kids out the door.
An hour later, I got a call from the front office. “Are you possibly missing something?” the administrator asked. “A kid?” I retorted. Nope. I had left my wallet!
When I picked up my wallet, I thought there is always some mom that isn’t on the ball and makes everyone else look more put together. I guess that mom might as well be me. At least I’ll be making people feel better about themselves.
So the next time you forget to pack your kid’s lunch or you pull out a pair of dirty pants from the laundry hamper for your child to wear, think of me. There’s so many moms out there just doing the best we can.
I’m totally there with you! I’ve pulled out jeans from the dirty clothes basket (they only wore them for a few hours, right?), packed a lunch of an apple, string cheese, and some grapes (night before grocery shopping), dropped my kid off 15 minutes early to school (he was fighting with his brother all morning), and many other similar offenses. It’s hard being a mom, and sometimes we all need to be cut a little slack. You’re not the only “that mom” there are many of us out there who just try to be part of the crowd so no one will notice 🙂
Rhonda — I am guilty of all of those things, too 🙂
Hi Jenny! Good thing you got your wallet back! Good thing, that even when running 1 thousand miles per hour, you are there for your kids, good thing you still kept your cool and sense of humor! There’re a lot of things we try to do the best we can, most of the time we do, some times we goofed…and that my friend, is also a good thing!
Big Hugs, I’ve been a total emotional mess this first week too, I left my little one on K and we are really not dealing all that good with the separation thing…well, let me rephrase that…I am Not doing well with the separation thing…oh well, Oh…Thanks for the feature girl! You are just too sweet!
No kidding. I can’t even imagine if I hadn’t gotten my wallet back. Ugh.
Dropping off your kid for the first time is tough. I get that. But you’ll find you’ll like a little bit of the independence and so will your kiddo. 🙂
I never, ever, ever have it together. And I’m pretty sure all the other moms have been talking about me behind my back since my first one entered kindergarten. This is now his 8th grade year. Not that I haven’t made a few mom friends, but I’ll never fit the mold of PTA mom. I finally just accepted that at the end of last school year though and have found that I may not be the perfect mom, the near perfect mom or even the so messed up we can’t even sale this at Goodwill mom, but I am the PERFECT mom for my family. And YOU are the perfect mom for your family. At the end of the day – that’s all that really matters. 🙂
I don’t fit in with the PTA crowd either. But the world needs moms like us to keep things real, right?
Yip. And we need to do a better job at finding each other. We need like the antithesis to a PTA group for our group. 😀
Take it from a mom whose kids are grown up. All the things that you are talking about won’t matter when your kids have grown up. The things that really matter are that you love your kids and that you are there for them when they need you. That is what they are going to remember. So don’t be so hard on yourself.
I’m actually not upset about it. I do laugh at how ridiculous things are. We’re all just human.