February 2003 Issue - Essay # 12
The
Color of the Day and Other Sad Stories
By Heather
Plett-Laurendeau
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Yellow
is the colour of the day today. My
daughter has gone to school wearing black.
No, it’s not that she’s a six-year-old anarchist, rebelling
against the establishment and its repressive rules.
It’s not even that she’s particularly fond of black. Yellow is, in fact, among her top
three favourite colours.
Here’s
the bottom line: I’m behind on the laundry and, besides that, I
didn’t get around to looking at the “colour of the day” list until
after she’d skipped off to school.
If I had looked at it, I might have at least rooted through the
odds-and-ends basket to find a yellow hair clip to brighten her
otherwise drab attire. You
see, I have a confession to make: I’m
a charter member of the “organizationally challenged” club.
Some people call me scatter-brained (mostly behind my back, but I
hear the muffled whispering). Sadly,
it’s a character flaw that appears most prominently in my parenting
skills. These past few weeks, with two children now in school, have been pure torture for me. Almost every day, my daughters come home with a new accusation: “Mom, there was no spoon in my lunch -- I couldn’t eat my pudding,” or “Mom, I couldn’t take a library book home -- you forgot to send the last one back." It’s
positively humiliating. Not
only has it become obvious to the teachers that I won’t win the award
for “most organized mother,” my two innocent daughters are being
faced with the painful reality that their mother is seriously flawed.
(So far, I’m still able to convince the baby I’m near
perfect, but that won’t last.) And
it’s not just school. There
was that phone call from the dentist’s office.
“Ummm … your daughter’s dentist appointment was supposed to
start 15 minutes ago.” Oops! Guess
I forgot to check the calendar! And
last spring, my daughter joined the soccer team on the second day of
practice -- ‘cause, well, I just didn’t get around to enrolling
her. To
give myself credit: I do try. I’ve
got a very cluttered bulletin board that displays all the things I’m
supposed to remember (hidden under three layers of children’s artwork).
I write down almost every appointment on my calendar (and then
forget to change the month). I
labeled a school folder for each of my kids (and then lost the
folders). I’ve even
invested in organizational tools to get a handle on my role as “chief
administrative officer” for this family.
But, alas, to no avail. No
matter what I do, there’s always something that slips my mind.
Some days, when I’m at my lowest, I feel deep sympathy for my
children -- the poor, innocent victims of my shortcomings.
(And yes, at my absolute weakest, I mutter obscenities at the
mothers of those children who always ALWAYS wear the right colour to school.) It’s
on those days, though, that, after scrambling to find matching socks and
a reasonably clean shirt for each of my girls (to give them at least
SOME dignity), I just have to open the morning paper for a little
reality check. I read the
stories of moms whose children are born addicted to cocaine.
Or I see pictures of a mom whose children died -- abandoned in the
car so she could get a haircut. Or
I hear about a child who’s been locked in a squalid bedroom with no
toilet and very little food for months on end -- by her mother! And
then, when my children come home from school, I sit back and watch them
giggling innocently and playing make-believe in a world where dreams may
still come true. And
occasionally, as they play, I catch brief glimpses of integrity and
kindness, and most of all hope. I
look at my cluttered bulletin board -- with the calendar still showing
September, and the painting of a rainbow with a door in it covering the
“important dates” list -- and I smile.
I might not get it all right, but there are some things I know.
My children are loved, and they know it.
When they kiss their daddy and me goodnight after their bedtime
prayers, they fall asleep knowing they are safe.
And somewhere along the line, we’ve managed to instill some
values in them. No,
I’m not perfect -- I’m the first to admit it.
And yes, my children may someday need to join a healing circle
for “children of organizationally challenged mothers."
But I’m doing the best I can with what I’ve got, and that’s
gotta be worth something! |
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Author's Biography This "organizationally challenged mother" lives and writes in Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. She has been writing for many years and has been a mother for seven of those years. Some days she trips over herself in both roles, but other days she has glorious moments of light-footedness and beauty. She is the mother of three daughters and the wife of one husband. She has had articles and poems published in magazines such as "The Messenger," "Zygote," and "Winnipeg Parent." E-mail Heather at hplauren@shaw.ca
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