Last Friday the writing was going well, ending the week rather nicely: A week in which I'd handed out almost all of my World Book Night books and I'd lost a bit of weight too, all while remaining teetotal for Lent...I'm guessing there's a link between weight and carousing, darn it! Also, the sun was shining and a weekend of sowing and planting beckoned......
I had a couple of errands to run before pick-up, but calculated I'd still be early for school. I even stopped to pick up two packets of those Love Heart sweets for the sproglets..........
I had however, completely forgotten that on exeat weekends pickup is earlier than normal, as there are no after school activities,..... I knew that! I just happen to have FORGOTTEN IT that afternoon...
I'm not great at checking my phone, the signal is dreadful most of the time, so I didn't see the missed calls. As I pulled into the school car park feeling fabulously early, my phone rang and it was hubby: School had called him and within seconds I realised that I was actually hideously late. I was instructed where to find the orphans....
Rehearsing my best grovel I made my way toward the headmaster's house, fortunately I was headed off at the pass by my children who'd spotted me from the the after-school care cottage. The 6yo dissolved and the 8yo looked furious.
I. Felt. Awful.
The 8yo boarded the car coolly but the 6yo was in floods, heartbroken, even the sweets didn't placate him. I put my arms around him and I sobbed too. The abandonment he must have felt was dreadful and it was all my fault.
To make matters worse, or better, I was spotted crying by a teacher and the Head's wife. The kinder they were, the more I cried. Pathetic really, but I just felt like an awful mum.
As I drove from the car park trying to contain my sobbing, I valiantly attempted to soothe the children..
'I'm so sorry I was late, I'll never make you sad like that again..'
Through heaving breaths the 6yo struggled to speak..
'We're not crying because you're late, we're sad because we wanted to play at the Headmaster's house.'
!
What a wicked mummy you are...I'm sure you can make it up to them...maybe forget to pick them up on a Friday night and leave them at the Headmaster's house until Monday...that should do it...
ReplyDeleteOh no, too too cute!
ReplyDeleteOMG you got me at the last sentence! ROTF!
ReplyDeleteha ha ha!!!
ReplyDeleteDon't be too hard on yourself, its not like you ate your young or anything. Thanks for following my blog and commenting.
ReplyDeleteOh dear Lou, my kids were regularly forgotten when we lived in France but when the school hours vary so much it's hardly surprising. Or at least that was my excuse. Thanks for the book. I will get yours in the post this week x
ReplyDelete:) Love the last line!
ReplyDeleteHad a senile moment once in our town library. It was only as I exited the main door with two children that someone said 'Don't you have your daughter with you today?'. I turned to find my tiny one, arms splayed and face pressed up against the glass pane of the children's section. My buggy was so laden with books I'd forgotten that I'd released my toddler from the straps half an hour earlier. I still wonder if I would have managed to get all the way home if someone hadn't said something!
Motherhood has a lot to blame for our progressive decline in memory cells.
Haha! At least there's no need to feel that bad about being late anymore!
ReplyDeleteah ha.....kids .......how I remember running red faced into the play ground week after week....happy daze......now it's all screaming, shouting, eye-rolling and slamming doors.....and that's just me!!
ReplyDeleteHA!!! Poor you!
ReplyDelete