And The Mother Of The Year Award Goes To....

I can admit to the fact I am not the most organized mom on the block.  Okay, that is actually being generous I might actually be the least organized mom in the whole school district.  It isn't that I don't try.  I go through periods where I attempt to get some sort of semblance of structure and planfulness. Just at the beginning of this school year I took Parenting Magazine's advice and put together what was supposed to be a "command center." I got a planner so we could write down important dates, I got a file holder to store homework and notices. I got a whiteboard because Parenting Magazine said I should.  Now I have an empty planner, the whiteboard went missing before I put it up and the file holder has basically become a wasteland of crap I don't know what else to do with.

I have an appointment reminder postcard from the kids dentist on my desk, from a date I missed months ago. I have misplaced the class directory, and I'm starting to develop panic attacks knowing that it's almost time to start summer camp registrations.

That said, my kids usually have clean clothes and a hot meal, we show up at birthday parties on time, they have their necessary immunizations and we made it to one of two of our kids parent-teacher conferences. 

But last week we really screwed up. No. Really. The kids had been off school for TWO WEEKS. That's right two weeks of  "I'm bored." "What can we do?" "Evan through a shoe at my head and now I bet I have a concussion" "I'm hungry" "I'm not hungry", "We have only been watching tv for 2.5 hours, can't we watch another show?" Anyways, by Sunday January 4 we were more than ready to send the rug rats back to school on Monday.

On Sunday the kids moaned and cried as we told them it was back to the normal bedtime since there was school tomorrow. Monday morning we packed up the backpacks and lunches in the usual frenzy of beat-the clock. At 8:35 we passed them off to our dear nanny who rushed them to school since they were late.  The husband then dropped me off at my office downtown and we were ready to start the day.

I glanced at my phone. A voicemail. From the school. It was the the secretary. Our children were in the office and today was an inservice day. No school. We had sent our kids to school and left them there when there was.... NO FREAKING SCHOOL.  The nanny had assumed that since she was late that all of the children were already in their classrooms, and hence she sent them in, unaware that (I'll say it again) the was NO FREAKING SCHOOL.

Had I utilized my family planner, perhaps I would have made a note of that. If I had synced the school calendar with my phone, perhaps I would have known that. Had I written it on a flipping whiteboard this may not have happened. Had I not been so totally and completely the opposite of organized, maybe, just maybe I would not have traumatized my sons by sending them to school on a day where there was NO FREAKING SCHOOL.


And the Parenting Of The Year Award goes to..... your's truly.

Time to get my act together.