Adventures in Parenthood

I went off and forgot my child today. Let me back up a bit. So yesterday I came home from work and the house was dark. I called out my boys name and he didn’t call back, so I immediately whipped out my cell phone and started dialing his number. It went to voicemail so panic began to rain down on me. I called him again and this time he picked up. “Hi Mom,” he said all chipper and nonchalant “I’m just getting out of track practice.”

“Huh?” I said, because I didn’t even know that school had resumed from winter break L On Monday’s, school starts after 9am (bank time or whatever, for the teachers) so he gets himself there in the morning without my help. Thankfully, he remembered that school had resumed and got himself up yesterday, like normal, and off to school like a responsible kid. Well, today, Tuesday, I got up, dragged myself around the house until I was dressed and ready to leave, and then I hopped in my car and left for work, not giving it a second thought. Somewhere around 8am, in the midst of me placing a pancake order with the cafeteria lady at my job, my cell phone started to ring. I noticed that it was coming from my home number. “Mom, where are you!?!?!” my son said, sounding like he’d just woken up. “You forgot to take me to school!”

I truly must be getting old because I had forgotten just that quick that school was back in session. No, wait, I can’t even blame this on old age because back when he was in third grade I mixed up the week of spring break and he ended up missing a whole week of school, in addition to the week of break, behind my absentmindedness. I remember getting a clue when we were in Best Buy one day during the supposed break and ran into one of his classmates who asked him where he’d been all week. I thought the little girl was either crazy or really asking him what he’d done during his break. Then, the following week, we got up, got dressed and drove to the school only to discover that it was completely locked up and (after driving to one of his friends’ houses and knocking on their door at 7am) that nobody would be there for a week because it was, in fact, spring break. My son was so happy when he got back into the car that he couldn't contain his smile. I, on the other hand, was mortified.