Why do these things happen to me? I guess because I am me and that's it.
But seriously, it was a little embarrassing when I brought the wrong kid to school...
All the parents were gathering with their preschoolers and there I was with my two-year-old. He didn't have a clue. But neither did they. They were too concerned about their own children to judge me.
My son didn't know that I received four emails about both kids. They both had separate orientation times. All he knew is that we were walking around a school. His classroom was closed. He didn't realize my mistake.
But I was so excited about reliving this memory, the memory I had of my first son's first day. They grow up too fast. I had been looking at old pictures of my older one when he first started school. And now his brother was going to the same classroom. I was so nervous for him.
I had some explaining to do when I took Oliver to the wrong time slot. The teacher looked a little confused as Oliver is smaller than his big brother. But we met, she brushed it off and I left, while the preschoolers in his class met each other. No biggie. I took the wrong kid to school.
My older son didn't want to go anyway. So it worked out. He was nervous and said he didn't want to meet the teacher.
"I'm afraid of the girls, " he said.
But he did fine, as expected.
The little one was the one I was concerned about. He is not very socialized. He's sort of like a wild animal. He just chases his older brother around turning everything into weapons and pretending to be a superhero, just like his brother, while kids his age are still watching Sesame Street.
So when his first day of school came it was challenging.
I'm the kind of parent that leaves things until the last minute. Like 30 minutes before school I sent my husband to Target shopping for a backpack for the little one.
"You made me that parent today," he said texting me from Target (the only store open at 8am).
I couldn't find the old backpack I thought I stored either in the closet in our bedroom or in the kitchen; both places you would clearly store a backpack.
So it didn't come as a surprise when my husband came home to give the backpack to my son, both of us making a big deal about his first day of school, when my older son had a complete meltdown.
"Where's my backpack?" he said.
It's exhausting. I mean truly exhausting. Everything has to be planned out ahead of time. If not, there is all kinds of drama. Drama that starts at 8:00 am.
So of course, out of desperation to get going to school, my husband promised him a new backpack.
Why didn't he get a new backpack in the first place?
Because he has a backpack from last year that is still usable. I wasn't planning on spending money on something we didn't need right away. I was not going to give into the "back to school" shopping pressure.
So not only did we not save money for school, we ended up buying two backpacks, that were not even on sale!
And although my youngest loved his backpack, he was not happy about going to school.
So I screwed up a couple times. A couple hundred times, that is. And it's okay. I am that parent. My kids' shirts will never be pressed, I might forget a bottle, a lunchbox or a kid. I might forget to put sunblock on them one day. I have put them in the wrong car seat and put each other's clothes on by mistake.
Are they alive and loved? Yes.
That's what really makes me a good parent.
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©2016 Lucee Santini, as first published on MomJunky.com