Being basically responsible for 6 people’s schedules means I’m guaranteed to mess things up now and then. There are a lot of balls in the air – doctors, dentists, orthodontists, physical therapists, school events, work schedules, sports… the list goes on and on.
Law of averages says I screw up timing or days at least five times a year. My family does get irritated at me, but this is the one area in my life where I honestly DGAF.
Listen, if you all had to keep track of all the crap my brain has to keep track of, you’d fail now and again too. I refuse to let guilt seep into this particular corner of my life. I accept my failures graciously in this area. Some things I’ll self-reflect on endlessly, like conversations that I will replay over and over again in my head, wishing I’d said this instead of that or wondering how the other person perceived my tone. But my inability to consistently get my entire family’s schedule right isn’t something I am going to lose sleep over. When you overload the system, sometimes you’re gonna get a mistake.
Case in point, this past Sunday. Scarlett had a soccer game at 1:00pm. My work calendar said this. The refrigerator calendar (color-coded, in red to reflect Scar’s commitments) confirmed 1 as well. Both of these manual entries by me, to be clear. Her core soccer schedule is actually maintained in an app on my phone that only I have access to. This calendar does not sync to anything so if changes occur, that’s on me to reflect it in our other calendars.
So, we planned the day accordingly with the 1pm game time as our target. Doing parent math, we rushed back from church to be home by 11:30 so we could leave the house in time to get Scar to the fields by 12. Vince took her so I could stay home with the younger two. They had already sat at the fields the day before and I made the executive decision to keep them home. It was supposed to be hot and Marina needed to nap.
They arrived at the fields late. Life360 showed her arrival time at 12:15. I tried. We got back from church a few minutes before 11:30 but she of course was not fully ready. I had called home from church at 10:30 to wake her up because child does not respond to her alarms, but in retrospect I probably should have called 15 minutes earlier. Her “get ready” routine for soccer isn’t what I’d call quick.
I don’t understand why it takes girls so long to get ready nowadays for sports. You are going to sweat and look like a trainwreck. Why put in so much effort? To this, Scar always tells me “Look good, feel good, play good, Mom” and she’s way more athletic than I ever was so I guess she’d know more than me. But still, despite the 50+ minutes she had had to get ready, that was not enough.
But because she wasn’t ready, they got to the fields late. Shortly after I got a phone call from Scarlett. I picked up the phone, thinking maybe she had forgotten something.
“Mom, we didn’t have to be here until 2.”
Uh oh. Immediately I figured one of two things happened. Either 1 – the schedule was updated in the app, and I didn’t change it in my calendars or 2- I just got it wrong the first time and didn’t realize it. No one is over here fact checking me and I have a lot of balls in the damn air.
Even though I realized exactly what she just said to me, my mouth still spewed out “What?” Like I was confused at this idea that *gasp* I could have gotten times wrong.
“The game isn’t until 3, Mom” Scar said, with a tinge of annoyance in her voice.
I pulled up the soccer app on my phone, although I knew full well that it would confirm what she was saying. I think I did it out of show….to save some face so my daughter wouldn’t think I was a hot mess. Although…if the shoe fits, right?!
Yup, app said game time 3, arrival time at the fields by 2. Sigh.
“Oh yessssss. You’re right.”
To which Scar just replied with one-word in a deadpan voice, “Yeah.”
“Opps I Did It Again” popped in my head, but I don’t think Scar would have appreciated me singing it at that exact moment. So, all I said was the same word she just gave me, “Yeahhhhhh.”
Scar then parrots back, “Yeahhhhhhh.”
And I think that was all we needed to say at that moment besides me apologizing. I gave no explanation for my mistake. We both knew how we got here. All I said was “I’m sorry.”
She sighed, resigned that this was just another tally on the list of times I will fuck up the schedules this year.
But hey, every story has a silver lining.
Girl was finally on time, even EARLY, for something for once. Vince is always harping on me that “if you’re not early, you’re late.” Well, here you go. She was actually early. Sure….2 hours early and then she had to leave the fields and come back again. But that’s just a minor detail. I’m just sitting over her proud that she can never again say that I ALWAYS make her late.
Not this day, my love.
Not this day.