Ice cream is too cold...soup's too hot

On Monday I did something I swore I would never do. I was late picking up Kennen from preschool. Not just late as in 'One of the last Mom's to show up', but late as in, 'THE last Mom to show up and pick up my scared and crying child from the office of the preschool director'.

Punctuality is not my strong suit. I don't mean to be rude, or insonsiderate or anything. I just have a very loose idea of how long it takes to get ready, pack up my purse, run around making sure lights are off and flatirons are unplugged and putting the dog outside. And since I live in a little suburban bubble, I think that everything takes 3 minutes to drive to. In reality it probably takes 15 minutes to get to Kennen's school with all those pesky red lights and school zones. Then throw a new baby into the mix that needs to be nursed NOW and well...my schedule got all fucked up and the preschool director was probably on the verge of contacting CPS for child abandonment.

I tried to make up for my lateness by zipping in and out of traffic but Murphy's Law dictated that I hit every.single.red.light. I got to the preschool and my heart sank. Usually there is a long carpool line of Mom's in their SUV's waiting to have their little darlings loaded into carseats by helpful teachers. When I pulled in though, there was not a single car in the parking lot, not a single teacher waiting outside. Damnit! I zoomed up to the double doors of the school and got out to go find my son. The preschool director saw me on the security camera and brought my crying middle child to me. I gushed an apology to her and picked up my 55 lb son. The last time I picked him up was in the early days of my pregnancy with Griffin but I just had to make him feel secure. Mommy fucked up and I wanted to make it right. He was a red faced snotty nosed mess but I somehow got him to laugh on the drive home. The rest of the night, I would joke around with him and say, "Who loves Kennen?" and he would point to me. Then I would say, "Who pickes up Kennen late from school?" then he would point to me again and laugh hysterically.

I think he forgave me. Well, I will tell you this. I will NEVER pick him up late again. How awful to be the last one picked up. Yesterday, I made up for it though. I had been out running errands with baby G all day long and instead of going home to feed him and risk being late again, I went to the preschool 45 minutes early and just nursed the baby in the parking lot. I was the very first car in the carpool line. Wow, I was on the ball today! Right when school was dismissed, I watched as a teacher brought Kennen out to my vehicle. And he was CRYING! We got him buckled in and I tried to calm him down and find out what horrible thing happened at school that made him so upset.

It took him a second but he finally sobbed, "I didn't want to be the first kid picked up!"

Seriously? Seriously. There's just no pleasing some people.