Mother of the Year

     My middle child's school year started off with a note : "Dear Teacher, despite what you may hear, I am NOT headed to jail..." Apparently my ticket for a MINOR traffic violation from the state highway patrol left a big impression on my five year old. (You parents out there know that all it takes is one conversation on the playground for a rumor to start.)
     Halfway through the year I received a form letter from the principal regarding my children's attendance.  They had missed quite a few days because of the plague that struck us the week of Thanksgiving and lasted until the Christmas tree came down (March 2nd. Yes, you read that date correctly.).  However, the attendance office's main concern was not with those absences but with the number of times the children had been tardy.  (I should've seen this coming when our daughter's 2nd 9 weeks report card came and my husband said "Good job on the fantastic grades yet again, kiddo. Impressive increase on days tardy too, Mom."  Although it is standard procedure to receive this letter when the magic number is hit, I took it very personally.  How did I go from the woman with a penchant for punctuality to the mom in the bathrobe cursing under her breath when the tardy bell rings in the car pool line? The mom in the school office signing her kids in late while wearing pajamas with a toddler wrapped around her leg...yeah, that's been me.  More than once.
    The letter came at the worse time.  A few days prior, I had spent my daughter's birthday in the ER with my son, and was back again two days later because both they and I had missed something.  Suffering from residual mommy guilt along with  lingering exhaustion from pulling more than one all nighter with a very sick little boy,  I already felt as if I was teetering on the edge of a meltdown.  And then I opened the mail.  The line at the bottom of the letter was the kicker "If there is a certain health condition or other concern of which I should be made aware, or if I may help in any way, please call me at (insert school's telephone number)."  So I made the call, offering further proof that moms in this state of sleep deprivation should not have telephone access.
     Looking back, I don't recall exactly what I said (and I'm grateful for that), although I"m fairly certain my purpose behind dialing was to explain or rather defend myself for the excessive tardiness and assure the principal that we would be making some changes to ensure that the children arrived at school on time from here on out  Yeah, that was my plan.  The execution? Epic fail. The snippets of the conversation that I DO remember are as follows: " There really WAS a pack of wild dogs circling my house one morning, I misjudged how long it takes me to get them ready for school when I have a 103 degree fever, we ran out of barf bins and the little one puked on the floor as the bus was pulling up, I didn't realize my son had a permanent marker mustache until the last minute...do you know how hard those are to wash off? The naked toddler rolling around in the snow takes precedence over the older kids making the bus, I was on the phone with poison control about the hair roller that the little guy swallowed, and The only way you can help is to close the school and germ bomb my son's Kindergarten class."  As always, the principal was kind and gracious and reassured me that the letter was only a formality and he was certain that things would improve. Clearly, he's an optimist.
    Although the children haven't been late since I made that phone nearly a month ago, it's what happened last Friday that makes me a shoe-in for the Mother of the Year award.  I forgot about the kitchen utensils that I had put in the bottom compartment of my son's lunchbox the evening prior (to prepare a snack of apple in the car for his little brother in between errands) and sent him off to school with cheese, crackers, carrots, yogurt,  a juice box, a steak knife, and a potato peeler.  Thankfully, the only person that peeked in that compartment was my son and when he realized the extra items weren't fruit snacks or Oreos he zipped it back up and went on with his day.
     I was horrified when I opened his lunch box after school...visions of school suspension, expulsion and parent court danced in my head. I was grateful that no one had been inadvertently hurt as well as relieved that my mistake hadn't been discovered by anyone other than my child. When my husband walked in the door from work that evening, my daughter ran up to him and said "Guess what Mommy did today, Daddy?!  Just guess!  I'll give you a hint...it's way worse than bringing us to school late too many times. She could've gone to jail for REAL this time."  Glad I don't have to write THAT note to the teacher...