Epic Mom fail this morning! I sent my daughter to school in tears. Why? I wouldn’t let her wake up her dad to say good morning because then we would be running late. Seriously? I can’t let her say a quick good morning to Daddy before school because I can’t let her be a couple minutes late? Really not even late, necessarily, just skating in between the first and second bells.
And what makes this even worse? Let me just tell on myself even further. This is such an epic mom fail because my husband had been out of town for the last ten days and got home long after she was in bed asleep last night. She missed him and couldn’t wait to see him and give him “lots of hugs and kisses”, and I insist on doing the “right thing” and leaving right on time for school instead of allowing her those couple extra minutes to say hi. Talk about feeling bad all day. And to top it off, on the way to school I had to mention she didn’t put on any jewelry, which just made the tears fall faster and harder. Poor little girl was off to a rough start on a Monday morning. Oh, but I did the “right thing” by being right on time for school. Oh please!
So after tattling on myself and putting my big failure out there for the world, please let me offer up my defense. So what happened is….Bella got up with her alarm (yes, she’s a big girl at 7 now and likes to wake up by herself) and came down and sat, no snuggled, on the couch. I came out of my room, offered up sweet good mornings and told her we couldn’t lay around, that she needed to get her bed made and get dressed while I got her breakfast. After some grumbling about not wanting to go to school and just wanting to stay home and play with Tater and see Daddy, she trudged her way upstairs to begin getting ready, or so I thought. Remembering it was PE day at school I went upstairs to remind her to wear shorts and a t shirt as opposed to some fancy, cutesy outfit since she would be outside in the heat of the day. When I open her door guess who is picking out an outfit…for her Build A Bear. Yep! Still not doing what she needs to get done (although to her credit, she had made her bed). So I gently reminded her that if she did not get dressed and get her hair brushed quickly she may not have time for breakfast before school, and really the only person she was hurting was herself, because I could come home and eat whatever I wanted (ok, a little unnecessary jab, perhaps, but she needed a reality check). And would I really let her go without breakfast? Of course not! But still.
I’ll spare you the rest of the details of the morning and get right to the point. She was dawdling, I was getting frustrated, it was 5 minutes after we normally leave the house, and she wants to wake up Daddy still. I was trying to make a point of doing what’s right and not being late, and because of her choice to dawdle the morning away, something had to give. The problem with my point was that it hurt her. She didn’t miss out on having the hair do she wanted, or having to settle for a less than desired breakfast or outfit. She didn’t miss out on stopping for a treat before school. No, she missed out on seeing her daddy, whom she was really missing and just wanted to say good morning to. This is the problem with being a mom, a woman, who stands firm on principle. Sometimes, this time, the “right thing”, the principle, was completely and utterly the wrong thing!
When Doing the "Right Thing" is Completely Wrong
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