Today's Blunder

I'm posting early today because, frankly, I just need to vent. The day started off fairly well, except for all the sneezing. I took a Claritin and cleared that right up. (that's only the third time i've had to take anything this season!) Eli and I went to the gym, where I had a good workout and ran into a couple of friends. After the gym, we went to the library, where we got new books and I ran into an acquaintance and met another mom with a daughter at Veritas.

After that, things just got aggravating. I was already on edge for some reason. Hormones? Allergy medicine? I don't know. Little things were feeling disproportionately annoying. But, I was really looking forward to seeing Lila's performances in the Grade School Fine Arts Salon. Eli napped, I showered, we (Doug, Eli, and I) got ready to go and actually made it out the door at roughly the time I'd planned. Then we got to the school and discovered that we had missed Lila's music performance.

 

I got the end time confused with the start time and we showed up right as all the other parents were coming out of the auditorium. When Lila finally saw us walk in, she just dissolved into tears. My heart split right in half. I can't even tell you how bad I felt. And it did not help that other people kept mentioning comments Lila had made about us not being there or how you could see the change in her face when she realized we were missing her performance.

 

Worst. Mom. Ever.

 

We hugged her and apologized and felt like total heels. She cried for a while and looked so pitiful that her best friend's mommy nearly cried along with her. A couple of other moms said they'd gotten the whole thing on video and would send us the files. That helped a tiny bit. We asked Lila if she'd like to get up on stage and give us a private performance. That helped a little bit too. She sang all three songs for us and showed us the surprise they'd prepared for the parents (punch in the gut - oof!).

 

At that point, she seemed to be pretty well recovered. I asked her forgiveness (which she graciously extended) and we moved on to the Author's Share portion of the afternoon. That's where we got to see all the material our kids have been working on in their Writers' Workshop. Lila showed us a couple of cute stories and some very creative drawings. It wasn't quite what I'd expected, but it was good to see her pride in the hard work she's been doing.

 

Things continued on after that, in an up-and-down sort of way. I misunderstood where we were supposed to meet up with her dance class for the final presentation of the afternoon. Down. We got to see Lila dance to 'The Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy' with her classmates. Up! Someone else made off with Lila's shoes, so we had to leave with a pair that was too big. Down. You get the idea... I just can't shake the terrible feeling over missing her music performance though.

 

Once we finally got home and the kids were doing other things, I went to my room and cried. Lila has totally moved on, but I am having a hard time forgiving myself for disappointing my child. I know it's not the first time, nor will it be the last, but oh! does it sting. *sigh*