Last night, one of Baby Girl's Brownie Leaders text me to see if we were on our way. My response was, So sorry, we would not be making it. I took a few moments to register that I had not fully understood the calendar reminder or the e-mail. Then a troop mom sent a photo of all the girls in their be-badged sashes--adorable! I loved seeing their smiles of accomplishment!
And then--the guilt--set in hard. I couldn't tell our daughter what she had missed last night. I wasn't ready to be the source of her disappointment. This morning I made a sincere apology to my daughter. It went something like,
"Honey, I don't want you to be sad, but I do have to tell you something. Last night was your bridging ceremony for Brownies. We missed it. I'm so sorry."
That sweet girl said, "It's okay, Mama." No tears. No anger. No stink-eye. Just forgiveness and understanding. How lucky are we that she is our girl?
So how does a mama not place an important kid ceremony on the calendar? This spring, we definitely missed meetings. Baby girl's soccer commitments fell on the same nights as her Brownie meetings. Our family was also coming off a weekend soccer tournament out of town, so the piles of laundry, the groceries we needed, the catching up that didn't happen on the weekend got stacked into late nights. I'm not exaggerating when I note that work has both her parents slammed. That doesn't mean our kids are not our first priority. They absolutely are--and to make the soccer trips and keep kids in clothes and college funds, work is important.
To manage my guilt, I text my college BFF with the words I assume a sinner uses at a confessional. She assured me that my child would be fine. She wrote that little disappointments or big ones like she is confronting--moving her child to a different country for his middle and high school years will not break our children. She assured me that apologizing for parental failings shows our children that perfection is a fallacy, that the best any of us can do is to apologize when we've hurt or failed someone and model that vulnerability.
My dear girlfriend's kind words made me feel a little better. After 11 years of parenting, I know one thing for certain. I'm completely capable of eating my feelings. Some mamas run. Some mamas clean. Some mamas create. I grab something salty or something sweet. I'm not saying it is healthy or wise. I'm saying it is real. So I grabbed a pint of Tillamook Double Peanut Butter and ate more than half of it. It didn't make me feel better, but it made my belly hurt, which distracted me from the berating self-talk that needed to stop.
What grand parents have always warned me about is that the speed of this life is astounding. When I saw the e-mails about bridging, I didn't even read them. It couldn't possibly be time for our Girlie to be crossing into Juniors. It must be "volunteer to help with the ceremony if you can" time. That I want her to stay little and stretch her childhood double years and triple weekends, is nothing unique. Cave mamas probably felt the same way. I know I am in denial about her maturing because while registering her for fall soccer today, I told the fine youth sports people she would be in third grade next year and then had to correct myself--she will be in fourth grade.
She has one of those mid-September birthdays and is a precocious thing. With a big sister and big brother to chase, she has always been beyond her years. I don't regret sending her to school at four-years-old--she turned five soon enough. I know her childhood is fleeting and maybe, just maybe, my unwillingness to read the e-mails and calendar reminders about bridging was my way of pushing back against the clock. I swear this missed ceremony was not due to my consistent calendar insufficiency, the cornerstone of my JV Mom status. I needed to push against time for just one night and keep my kiddo small. Shame on the guilt that followed.
I swear we will get her to her graduation ceremony. We will mark ALL the calendars. We will be excited about her adult plans. We won't be ready. We will weep as we celebrate her. I'm teary just typing it, though it is already less than a decade away.
