Metaphorical Face-plants

Due to the road construction around our area, the school buses had to make changes to the morning and afternoon routes. I received a convoluted revised schedule with handwritten changes last week from the bus driver. I looked over that schedule many times and I finally figured out that our stop is now toward the beginning of the route, rather than the end. The bus would come from the other entrance of the neighborhood, which meant we lost our hilltop advantage. This change to my morning routine made me nervous and I thought about it all weekend. I know it is not that big of a change but we were spoiled. The old route was good for us. S and I would sit at the kitchen table and watch for the bus in the morning. We had from the time the bus appeared at the bottom of the hill and one other stop before she had to get to the end of our property. She didn't have to cross in front of the bus. I loved the curbside pick-up. Now, the bus comes around the corner in the opposite direction and she has to cross the street. Again, not a big deal, but it's not as nice as the old way.

I am also paranoid about missing the bus. I really don't want to drive S to school with B and my godson, LC in tow. I try to avoid wrangling kids into car seats until after my morning coffee. Plus, I've never dropped S off at school in the morning and I didn't want to start today. I decided to skip packing a lunch and told S to buy her lunch instead. (I load her lunch card for those days when I am too spent to make a lunch or if we ever sleep in. I'm proud to say, she doesn't use it often.) After all that worry, the bus arrived only 4 minutes early and S was off to school like any other day. Unfortunately, while I was so concerned about the bus route, I completely forgot to pack S's morning snack. Doh!

Even Spider-Man has school bus issues.
Photo credit - http://movies.ign.com/articles/057/057372p1.html

That was just the beginning. All morning, I made dumb little mistakes. I was talking to B and failed to notice I was pouring coffee onto the counter, rather than into my mug. While adjusting the bark collar on our Doberman, I put my face too close to his neck and got a nose full of citronella spray when he barked at the squirrel taunting him from outside. (He is such a cliche when it comes to squirrels.) I didn't tighten LC's sippy cup lid and I dumped milk all over the floor. It was a comedy of errors and I was the star of the show. On their own, each fumble was insignificant. Put them all together and I was feeling pretty bad about my day.

I decided that the day was lost and I was not going to try to be the boss anymore. I was going to let things fall apart. I was going to ignore the urge to redeem myself. Just call it a day, Terese, you can't win. You're only going to make it worse. Sometimes, you just have to resign to the fact that you psyched yourself out before the race, the gun went off, and you face-planted at the starting line. It's okay. [Fecal matter] happens. Just because you feel like you can't win, doesn't mean you totally lost. What makes a bad day worse is when you beat yourself up about it. We all know that. My mom quoted my mantra back to me this morning, "You'll be fine. I promise." She's right. I'm right. No matter what happens, I'll be fine. You'll be fine. It will all work out. Or it won't. It doesn't matter. The little fumbles in your day will not destroy you. They will not destroy me, either. It doesn't mean you have to be sunshine and sparkles about it. It's okay to mope and complain a little. Just don't let the moping and complaining become a regular thing. It will make you feel that you are not as awesome as you really are. Losing sight of your awesomeness is worse than citronella spray up the nose, believe me.

So, after I got my complaining and moping out of the way, I decided that I wasn't going to give up the race and at least finish the damn thing. I reminded myself of all my little blessings. (I highly recommend counting your blessings. I woke up today should be one. My children woke up today should be another.) I had a nice chat with my hub while he was driving back to work from his lunch break. S's teacher sent an email telling me not to worry about snack: She had some spare goldfish crackers and that I was not the only mommy to forget a snack today. I made myself a nice cup of tea and pretended to be a dinosaur with the kids. B and LC were getting cranky and I challenged myself to get them both down for a nap. Guess what? I did it. I got little L "I don't EVER take naps" C down in 5 minutes. He's still out. B followed right behind him. I suddenly don't feel like I lost the race anymore. I am still awesome. You are still awesome, too.