It is almost a certainty that this year’s award will NOT be coming to me. Know when your watching TV and you see the “prize van” drive up with balloons and you just know, deep in your gut that they’re coming for you with that big Publisher’s Clearing House check? It’s the same with Mother of the Year except that I know my prize isn’t coming—at least not after my performance this weekend.
It was the first nice Sunday in I can’t remember how long in Seattle so we decided to venture out. There was an event I wanted to check out at the Seattle Center called Northwest Enterprising Moms and I figured that would be a quick diversion and we could spend the rest of the time at the big fountain. After seeing some other moms I know through business and chatting away, a short stop over turned into an hour and my kids were getting anxious. Then anxious turned into pissed off. And pissed off turned into tears. Ugh. Bad mommy. Selfish mommy. So I finally tore myself away and scooped Logan off the floor and promised to not only buy him ice cream and a new baseball mitt but that I would never do that to him again. And of course, we left. Wait, we get to the fountain and where is Johnny and Blaise? We searched everywhere for them and couldn’t find them. After about 30 minutes and steam coming out of my ears, Johnny appeared but where was Blaise? I could not believe it. I panicked. I tore across the field back to the exhibition hall. I had visions of CPS coming to my door and telling me what a crap mother I was and being put in mommy jail. Sure enough, there she was. Now as terrifying as this was for her and for me (presumably for Johnny too but who in the heck knows sometimes) she did absolutely the right thing. She went to the gals I was talking to who were my friends although she’d only met them that day and stayed with them until I came back. She was scared I know but handled it like a pro.
We all try so hard every single day to be good mommies. To take good care both to encourage, be patient and above all, not do too much long term damage. I’ve never gotten over my mother throwing away my favorite jeans while I was away at summer camp because she just couldn’t bear to patch them one more time. When I got home that summer, Sears was all out of purple toughskins and I could never replace them. I still haven’t gotten over it (ok, so they weren’t 7’s but then I didn’t care how my butt looked then) and let my mother know that every chance I get. We’re not perfect. We’re inconsistent and fallible. But I know that for me the most important thing to remember is that it’s not about ME, it’s about them. So next time you just happen to leave your child unattended like baggage at the airport, think less about you being a bad mommy and more about whether your child is safe and happy.
Posted on May 5th, 2008 by Sam
Filed under: Uncategorized
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