This is not my best week, you guys.
Monday was just awful. The kids weren’t back in school yet and I had to work (and catch up on everything non-US based people were doing while I was eating enough pie and sweet potatoes to choke an elephant), but it was just one day. I figured I could handle it. Oh man. They were just awful. Work was awful. I was awful. At one point I was on a conference call that was taking every single iota of my concentration, and the boys would not leave me alone. I think I may have turned and breathed fire once, but it bought me only a momentary reprieve. Later in the day, we were all three sitting on the floor in tears together for awhile. The best thing I can say about Monday is that it is over.
Tuesday was better, but my head was not in the game. I requested feedback from a client via e-mail and then discovered about five minutes later that I had never actually sent the thing I needed feedback on. So it would be tricky for her to have done what I needed. That was sadly not an isolated incident. And I forgot to start Levi’s treatments in time for us to leave that evening for church, so we did the general mad rush around everything else (the treatments take as long as they take; there’s not much you can do about that) and slid in to church sideways, panting, and a little late. As usual.
Today I forgot to go to an event at the school. FOR. GOT. I was at home in my yoga pants an hour after it had started. Did I mention that I’m one of the advisors for this event? I routinely forget phone numbers and my children’s names and how many cups of sugar I have added to the bowl in front of me and whether I need any more for that recipe. I do not usually just forget to show up somewhere. I’m a little shaken up by this. (Paul thinks it’s hilarious. I haven’t decided how to punish him.)
So because I had a whole thing this afternoon that I just totally whiffed on, I wigged out and my planning for the rest of the day went even more cattywampus than usual. I did not get a casserole in the oven. I did not get Levi’s lunch packed. He’s going to have to buy tomorrow. I hope he will be able to go on. I did manage to get to the grocery store, but everything nonperishable is still sitting out on the counter because I just do not care. I have no idea if there are clean pants for school tomorrow, and I’m not going into their room to look because they are dead asleep and I’m not THAT crazy. I ran out of time for today’s Advent activity, and my sister stepped in and did it with the kids instead. My performance this week is, as noted above, about a 3.5 on a scale of 10.
So why am I telling you all this? Because … it’s fine.
I apologized to my children for losing my temper and breathing fire at them, and we talked (calmly!) about what needs to happen when I’m working. I executed Advent imperfectly (which you may remember that I predicted, so I’m at least good at prophecy, hmm?), but I’m not giving up on it. I am embarrassed about the dorky e-mails to the client and really embarrassed about flaking on the school thing. And you know what? That’s all that happened. I’m really embarrassed. The end.
I am allowed to be a complete dingbat sometimes. And so are you. If you are having a very low-performing week, my friend, know that you are not alone. It will be over soon. The people who love you will forgive you (even if they keep laughing at you for awhile), and everyone else will forget about it sooner than you think. If they were even paying attention to you in the first place.
It will be fine. Tomorrow is another day.
And to get there a little faster, I am going to bed. Peace out.
Tomorrow will be better.
Oh my dear sweet cousin and friend. Are we having mirror image weeks? Mine is slowly improving, just in time for the hustle and bustle of the weekend. I had to stop the kids from decorating the house last night and go to bed ‘because I didn’t want them to have the memory of decorating the tree while Mommy yelled at them’. Then tonight they made me proud by getting AH.MAY.ZING. reports from their teachers.
No worries on forgetting the event at school. I overslept the morning of a field trip that I was a chaperone on. (Like, my friend texted me while the bus was pulling out of the school and the sound of the text woke me up). The school let me drive there separately (with Riley) and all was fine.
Well fine except for the moment I breathed fire on the superstar (insert sarcastic font) mom that turned to me when I walked in the museum a few minutes late and said “I don’t EVEN want to know WHY you are late.” (I had been up until 4 am the previous three nights working on a college project while working full time and dealing with the kids’ dad.)
I survived it. Riley survived it. And now I just laugh. Because I know I’m not a superstar mom. I’m just a mom giving it all she has while occasionally breathing fire.