BAD MOM DAY

"You've got to take life and ride it till the wheels fall off."

~ Brad Simms

I love summer.  And I love my kids.  But, holy crap, am I ready for school to start.  For the past couple weeks the wheels have been getting rusty, wobbly and really, really loose.  Then on Wednesday, they completely fell off.  I woke up thinking I had it together.  Not so much.  As I crawled into bed at the end of the day I found myself wondering how the hell I had somewhat successfully (translation - barely) pulled it all off given how things had gone.  I was annoyed and deflated by the many near misses but also a little proud of myself for managing to, as my neighbor labeled it, pinch hit in the final inning and pull of the win....by a hair, but still.  Here how it played out:
6:30am Woke up
6:31am Made coffee
6:42am Kids woke up (there was no school, it was pitch black out because it was raining, and yet, still my kids got up at the crack of dawn.  Every. Single. Day.)
6:45am Walked the dog as I was drinking coffee and checking email, all while carrying an umbrella for the sole purpose of keeping my coffee hot and my phone (somewhat) dry.
7:30am Set my kids up with a movie so I could go for a run. (thankfully, they are old enough to leave solo for an hour or so.)
8:15am Headed out for an 8 miler.
9:30am Arrived back home and was immediately hit with the following questions by my kids:
~ will you come see our fort?
~ can I have a gummy worm?
~ can we go to Sky Zone (trampoline park)?
~ can we go to Staples for school supplies?
~ can I please order these curly pencils with my own money?
10:00am Spent some time with both girls as they finished up all summer work, got it all organized and got their backpacks ready for the next day.
11:30am Agreed to take the girls to Sky Zone if they used their own money.  (this was our 3rd time going in less than two weeks.  Again.....school.  Please.)
12:00pm Threw together some lunch. (Cereal?  Carrots and peanut butter?  Waffles?)
----> mid-lunch the doorbell rang and it was Grace's BFF, who lives two doors down, asking if she could play.  We were literally eating and walking out the door, so we threw her in the car with us to go to Sky Zone.  (She might have asked her mom, not 100% sure)
1:00pm The girls jumped their brains out while I sat and watched. (confession - might have dozed off for a few minutes)
2:00pm The following events unfolded, maybe in this order, maybe not:
~ grabbed girls to go home
~ couldn't find keys
~ searched madly for 10 minutes
~ girls went back to jumping
~ started to freak out because I had to get to work and would be late
~ finally found keys
~ rounded girls up (again)
~ called sitter to tell her we are running late
~ sitter called back to remind me she's coming Wednesday, not Tuesday.
~ freaked out (again)
~ called mom of Grace's BFF to see if girls could hang with her while I went to work. (thank you, Emily)
~ got home, dropped all three girls down the street and flew (safely) back out to get to work.
2:57pm Arrived at LHS for XC practice. (3 minutes to spare.  Yes, I was sweating)
5:00 ----> and so on....

In addition to all of the aforementioned fumbles, I also realized, mid-practice, that it was Tuesday, not Monday as I had thought (Gah! Labor Day!).  So, while my athletes were warming up for their workout, I scrambled to find rides for both of my girls to get to their various activities.  Seriously, I couldn't have messed up more if I had tried.  It doesn't matter what happened from 5:00 on.  You get the point.  Again, somehow I made it all come together. Was it ugly and stressful?  Yes.  Yes it was.  Did my kids notice?  Probably.  Will they dwell on it?  Nope.  Thus, I, too, will let it go.  It's no different from a bad race, really.  They happen.  We hate them while they are happening.  We get through them.  We question what went wrong.  We laugh about them.  And then we hope they never happen again.  Why am I telling you all this??  Well, first, maybe you can relate in some way and we find strength in numbers, right?  Second, I like to like to (need to) laugh at myself.  You should laugh at me, too.  And third, because being a mom, like being a runner, or anything that you're passionate about, is never perfect.  But we can always strive to do it as well as we can at that particular moment, to learn from our mistakes and, most importantly, to keep getting better day in and day out.  Otherwise, what would be the point?

Listen to this:
Burn It to the Ground - Katie Day