Have you ever forgotten to pick your child up from school, lost a child, completely neglect one child, arrive late for an interview or cancel with a client at the last minute? Has any of those happened to you in one day? If not, then give yourself a pat on the back and say a little prayer for mothers like me who loses the plot every once in a while. While you’re at it, if you happen to see Murphy, punch him real hard for me (preferably on the nose) and get rid of those stupid laws.
Sadly all of those really happened to me today and I’m just about recovering from it. Literally.
It all started when I dropped my girls off at school for their official first day. I live a mere ten minute walk away from their school but since I had an early morning interview, we drove them there. Big mistake because apparently businesses lost out on production as all parents decided to take their kids to school this morning. What was supposed to be a two minute drive lasted a whole fifteen minutes.
Again I realized that it only takes two raindrops for Capetonians to completely forget their driving skills. Traffic resembled a rainy day in Cape Town. It was raining ‘back to school’. This resulted in my being horribly late for an interview. Luckily I had enough sense to contact the interviewer long before I was due to arrive and she was pretty cool about it. So cool that I had an excellent interview and I may just join the corporate world again real soon. At least one positive in what became the craziest day.
It was on that high that I almost forget to collect my baby from school. In my defense, I’m still new to my little girl going to school so it’s going to take a bit of getting used to. You may say that it’s her first day and that I can’t seriously do that on the first day. Well I can and I did, but I remembered just in time.
Child number two came home with exciting news. She was selected as a prefect and had some other exciting news too. Unfortunately I celebrated in an inside voice which is very uncharacteristic and thinking of my first reaction to her great news she probably felt a little neglected. I made her talk in her inside voice not to wake the hubster because he’s doing night duty at work. If she doesn’t suffer from middle child syndrome after today then I may just have a second chance and I vow to never neglect her again. I’ll shout at the top of my lungs like I usually do.
Bad luck comes in threes normally but as you’ll note I’m on my fourth with the next one. Due to a misunderstanding (not my part) my son’s new taxi driver did not collect him from school and I made a mad dash to school two hours after school closed. If you’ve ever lost a child in a mall (never lost a child in a mall yet) or wherever you’ll know what I went through. Knowing you’ve entrusted your child in someone else’s care and they don’t return them… Well there are just no words to explain what I experienced. All thanks to God, my son was safe and he had enough sense to stay at school. He had full confidence that we would fetch him.
I had to cancel an appointment with a new client to look for him and luckily the lady understood. Strike five for Murphy! At this point I’m thinking he’s actually a she and she’s got some vendetta against me. Not a good start to a new business relationship but in life we need to choose between what’s really important and money sometimes. My boy needed some TLC and I just had to chill.
With all that went wrong today you’d think I’d be ready to throw in the towel, but I’m a little power house. It takes much more than five strikes to knock me out. I’m a mother of three so I’ve learned a thing or two in the last thriteen years. What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger they say. Let’s hope ‘THEY’ are right.
Tomorrow had better be a great day!
Surviving Jonkersville 