Submitted by Natasha in Alberta, Canada (To read more about Natasha, visit her website Becoming Something.)
Dear Children Of Mine,
I know that right now you think I’m a space cadet. But one day, you will have children and you, too, will have Swiss cheese for brains. I write this for you to read then. It’s my letter of comfort and reassurance that you are not alone. Other moms write love letters to their kids to read when they get older. I am writing to tell you about the time a local church, that makes lunch for school kids of neglectful parents, had to feed Montana and Josie AND the time I almost sent you to the emergency room from riding in a van driven by a big puppy.
I’m not making this stuff up.
The day was Tuesday, January 6, 2009.
I stopped my morning conversing on Twitter long enough to have a shower, get dressed, primp myself a little, dress Lulu, and drive to school to pick up Daisy. But the freezing cold water in the shower told me that the instant water heater’s temperature gauge thingie was broken again. Lately, it beeps and instead of reading 140 degrees Farenheit, it reads 12. I threw on your dad’s sweater and ran to the basement to fix the temperature gauge. Suddenly I remembered I had to make lunch for Montana and Josie, who are getting tired of eating sandwiches everyday. I said I’d bring a warm lunch in lieu of sandwiches.
I made Josie a bagel pizza and Montana the Irish stew he wanted. The only reason Montana wants that dog food of a lunch is because Ireland is his obsession de jour. For his birthday, yesterday, he wanted to go to an Irish restaurant and couldn’t understand why there is no such thing. We said, “It’s called a pub. You get drunk there.”
I had my shower, quickly threw on some clothes, pulled my hair into a pony tail, threw on a tuque, got Lulu dressed in something other than a swim suit, grabbed the lunches, and opened the door to leave.
That is when Izzy, our golden lab puppy, four months of age, ran outside.
Of course, she would NOT come when I called her. She’ll come on command when she has nothing better to do or when she thinks my belly will explode with dog treats once she jumps up on it, but not when she’s playing in the snow with the neighbor’s hot tub sponge thingy AGAIN. We think that’s what it is, anyway. All we know is that SHE knows it’s puppy contraband. Which is why she would not come when I called, which is why I was late.
I didn’t have time to unlock the front door and put Izzy back inside after I caught her, so I brought her in the van, looping her leash to the head rest of the front passenger seat and letting her sit on the floor, beaneath Lulu’s feet.
Once I got Daisy home, I unbuckled her, walked around to unbuckle Lulu, and on the floor I saw the bag with Montana and Josie’s lunches.
LET THE RECORD SHOW that I DID make the lunches and I DID bring them to school, and was only a few minutes late and being late was the fault of that dog we bought you because we are suckers for punishment.
The girls and I went back to school. By now, kids were starting to go outside for recess. I pulled right up to the school, across from the front doors.
I was just going to dash into the school and drop the lunches off at the office. I left Lulu and Daisy buckled in their carseats, in the running vehicle, with the dog. I know, I know. People don’t do this in your day. No one is allowed to leave their kids in a running vehicle, with the doors unlocked, for longer than three seconds, because the world is evil and someone could steal you. But it’s a SCHOOL, not a prison, or even the mall. There are moms coming and going. I was parked RIGHT THERE, not 50 feet away. And I was just going to dash in and dash out.
But once I got in there, Janice, the secretary, told me that she already gave Josie and Montana, lunches: cheese sandwiches, juice boxes, carrots and cookies. MORE THAN WHAT I GIVE THEM. (Because it’s more than they eat.) She was basically suggesting I just go home with the lunches in tow but I couldn’t stand the though of them thinking I just forgot about them. Okay, so I did forget about them. But not entirely!
I ran to their classrooms to explain. Neither child had eaten lunch yet so I took their white bread sandwiches back to the office. Josie, I have to say, looked unimpressed. It’s not the first time I’ve forgotten to bring her lunch. Josie, I’ve left you my wedding ring in my will, okay? I didn’t always get you your lunch on time but you can have the symbol of my marriage that brought you into this world. Are we even now?
As the other kids all ran outside to play, swinging the front door open, I saw the headlights on our van. “Ooh… did I leave the vehicle running all this time? Darn.”
The van was locked. I couldn’t open any of the doors or even the trunk door that doesn’t always shut properly and so is sometimes left unlocked when the rest of the van is locked. Izzy, who usually hangs out on the floor of the van below the feet of the girls, was on the passenger seat. She must have hit the power lock switch with her monster paws. I looked at Daisy through the window, raising my voice so she could hear me through the glass and Jack Johnson’s serenade.
“Daisy. Izzy locked the van. I need you to get yourself out of your carseat.”
“I can’t! It’s too hard!”
“I know, it’s really hard to undo that top part. Try it with your left hand. See these fingers? Try it with your thumb and this finger. Daisy, if you can do this, you will be a hero!”
“Like this?” she asked, holding up her left thumb and index finger.
“Yes! Try and squeeze those two buttons and pull that chest clip apart.”
“I CAN’T!”
I stood there laughing with my head against the window. How quickly I can get myself into a mess, I thought. It’s not like this is the FIRST time I’ve accidentally locked kids in the car. I’m no amateur.
The possible solutions ran through my head. I confess, I said a bad word that starts with S.
With my head pressed against the glass, I peered at the dog whose head seemed to be going through the front passenger window. Naturally this freaked me out. How did she get her head through the glass?
It took me a whole second but I did realize that Izzy had not only locked the van, she had rolled down the window. TENDER MERCIES, I tell ya. I ran to the passenger side and unlocked the van.
I phoned your dad once I got home, to tell him my little story. He laughed at the part about me forgetting the lunches and having to go back to school.
“Geez, first we forget our doggie bags at the restaurant last night. Then lunch.”
“Oh, it gets better,” I said and told him the part about being locked out of the van.
“So, you left them in the van running? With the dog on the front seat?”
“Well, she usually stays in the back on the floor. But ya….”
“It’s a good thing she didn’t hit the gear shift.”
“Wow. Ya….”
[Big pause while we both dwell upon my stupidity.]
“Well,” I said. “The van would have rolled down to the street where, if there were no cars coming, it would have just hit the fence and stopped. Or, if there WERE vehicles coming–”
“They would have got hit.”
“Well, yes. But not at a high speed. It’s a 30 kph zone and even when people go faster, it’s not usually more than 50. The kids would have been strapped in and the dog would have whiplash. SELF-INDUCED whiplash, I might add.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t leave the dog in the van anymore with the vehicle running.”
“CRAP I’m stupid.”
“You had a lot on your mind.”
“I did. I was thinking of all the things that have to get done and I really need to get to bed earlier. The funny thing is that as I was taking Daisy out of the van the first time, I was thinking about how we didn’t have any leftovers for lunch from last night’s supper and I was planning my [Twitter] tweet in my head that you should give me a massage to make up for it. And here I forgot lunch.”
“Me? You’re the one who forgot the food. I took the kids to the van. The one who stays and pays always gets the food.”
“What? Why shouldn’t you have taken them? You were on your way out to the van. I was on my way to the Interac machine.”
“When I pay, I always take the food. And I was carrying two girls.”
“So, last night… we were both forgiving the other for leaving the food? I thought I was forgiving you but you were forgiving me?”
“Yep.”
“Well, that’s nice, I guess.”
There you have it, children. When you forget my birthday like we forgot your dad’s parents birthdays recently… when you send your kids to school with a peanut butter and jam sandwich because you forgot about the no peanut rule (assuming peanut butter is still allowed in the country when you read this)… when you forget to bring your daughter to piano for the third week in a row… remember that it’s not your fault. Parenting takes up more brain space than is reasonable.
And you have my genes.
Love,
Mom.
Oh my what a day! I can totally relate. Glad things worked out well, and you will forever have a funny story to tell. lol!
Jenna @ Newlyweds’s last blog post..Health & Fitness Goals