Hanging by a thread

Mostly I'm a happy mom, who refuses to worry about bedbugs, kidnappers or falling out of trees. Once every few months, I fall into the depths of despair. I am cast in by being confronted with my failures. Staring at your imperfections and at the things you came up short on isn't fun. That's how it is this year at the end of school. I had Hazel and a lot of things just didn't go smoothly. Kait doesn't have a grasp on spelling yet and we didn't always study her spelling words. I only went to Eden's class one time this year, to deliver cupcakes for her birthday. I even missed the Animoto presentation yesterday. I have no memory of reading that it was happening or that I was invited. While I did acquire other extensive volunteer responsibilities this year, I quit volunteering weekly in Kait's class after Hazel was born. There are hard things in life about not having any family nearby and a lack of ever having a babysitter is one of them. Kait was okay with it. She loves her baby sister and I think it's pretty apparent to all of my kids that I wear about as many hats as I can handle. However, Kaitlyn's emotions met her match when her teacher announced that they would be serving an appreciation breakfast for the weekly volunteers. This would not include me, and of course I think it's terribly sweet that Ms. Baxter does something to show appreciation for the dedicated volunteers who have helped my sweet Kait learn all year. But Kait broke my heart. I asked her what she would be doing for the last day and she mentioned the breakfast. I jokingly said "oh the one for all of the people who actually did all of their volunteering in the class?" Her chin wobbled and she said "Ms. Baxter said it was okay because you had Hazel." I said "oh Kait, I'm sorry, I was just joking! It's okay, I don't mind not coming to the breakfast." What I didn't know was that practically every child had a parent volunteering in the class this year so very few kids would not be serving their parents. Kait started sobbing uncontrollably and told me that all of her friends were excited about it and she felt left out. I wish I could say that I told Kait it's really a breakfast to thank volunteers, not a parent child breakfast but I was already crying for her that her mommy hadn't been there to volunteer so I emotionally told her that she didn't need to go, she could stay home and have breakfast with me. She wanted to stay home for a minute but then a bit of steel crept into her jaw and she announced that she wanted to go to school and tell Ms. Baxter that she disagrees with it and that it should be for all of the volunteers. I told her she could do that if she wanted to, and that it's okay to respectfully tell a person how you feel. I asked her if having Hazel is better than a breakfast and she agreed but then started crying again. It literally drained the life out of me. I felt like scum on the bottom of a pond for not trying harder. Then Eden told her she was so sad for her and hugged her and told her she felt like crying too because Kait was so sad and I saw the wobble in her chin to prove it. That made me cry all over again seeing Eden caring for Kait. Eden hadn't had a great day either. Her teacher told her that she couldn't play with the parachute she brought to school for the End of Year party and that she didn't need Eden's toppings for the ice-cream either. I don't know how she could have made Eden feel any more useless if she tried and I'm sure it was just an oversight but it just made for a very crappy day. It highlighted to me how often adults completely overlook how children feel. We assume things, expect the little people to roll with the plan and have no idea about the turmoils inside. Of course if we knew about how they were feeling, we could help them understand situations better, but often we are so focused on pushing them to do what we need them to do that we miss the whole thing. I can't say that I finished the year well, but it's over. It's been so hard and so easy. Hazel is a delight, whatever is hard has nothing to do with the demeanor of my children. They are all loving, wonderful people whom I love more than words. It is mostly things like laundry, housing, carpool and the kitchen headache (what's for dinner?) I don't know if reading this someday will make my kids feel a bit better about this whole debacle, but I hope so. I hope they can look back on their childhood and say "mom and dad sure did love us" even if we do fail in a million little ways.