cute faces mean good parenting, right?

 I had one of those days.  One of those days where I kept asking Karl, "Why do they just let people have kids?"  And let me be clear.  It wasn't because of what my kids were doing.  It was because of my parenting skills.  Or I should say, lack of parenting skills.  The morning starting with, amidst the usual chaos, overhearing Samuel ask loudly (most questions he asks are loud.  It's an unfortunate fact that the louder you say something in this family, the higher the chance of you getting any sort of response), "When is Easter Egg day?"  In his six year old honesty, his single question let me know how well I had taught my son the meaning of Easter.  Not much more than days of coloring eggs, eating egg-shaped candy, and chucking eggs down big hills. Awesome parenting.

So then, the day goes on and and we go with a realtor to look at houses.  Phone rings around 1:15.  Instead of, "Hi Mom," sweet little Eva greets me with, "Mom, it's Wednesday."  Which means it's short day and I am 45 minutes late.  We rush to pick them up.  I send Karl into the office because the last time I went in, they scolded me for not having a local phone number.  We still don't.  It's on our list. 

Oh, just so no one tries to tell me that forgetting to pick your kids up early on early day doesn't make you a bad mom... how about the fact that this is the second time.  The last time this happened, I made sure to be on time the next day.  And the cute little Japanese crossing guard that always has the kids "give him five" when they cross, says to my kids, "Mommy no forget you today?"  

So, back to this bad parenting day...

Samuel starts to tell us about his awesome day on his field trip to the fire station.  That is when I remember the note that they sent home telling us about it.  And the mental note (which is as good as, well, I might as well write it on an Etch A Sketch.  And as soon as I start walking, it starts to disappear) I made to myself to remember to send Samuel in shoes.  Seriously, they put it in bold to send the kids in shoes on field trip days.  But my Etch-A-Sketch head sent Samuel to school in flip flops (or "slippers" as they call them here) as usual.  Poor Samuel was the ONLY kid with slippers on.  He said he was embarrassed.  Bad parenting.

On top of that, Eva had to pull a card.  She never has to pull cards.  She didn't do her homework.  I take the blame.  Maybe just because I was already having a bad parenting day but I think the real reason was because I scheduled the day super heavy (Japanese class, Hula class, and then a church activity) and Eva had zero down time that day.  Um, teacher?  Eva couldn't do her homework because her mom was too busy overscheduling her.

I wish I had an excuse.  Like, we are trying to figure out where we are going to live in August and that means a lot of decisions and decisions exhaust me.  I have some sort of self diagnosed decision induced narcolepsy or something.  But, I am afraid that this might me kind of normal for me and this day I cared that I am this way.  

As to not make this post entirely negative, I inserted a few photos that have been making me smile, lately.  Samuel, with his mouth wide open for the photo?  Normal.  Maximus with his mouth wide open for the photo?  This was a first.  Samuel taught him well, right?  We laughed pretty hard at this one.  And the last one?  This was taken with my phone.  My phone!  I stuck matching T-shirts in Eva and Samuel's Wednesday slot (they don't have much matchy stuff, Eva's is from our Chicago trip years ago and Samuel's is from Dillard's awesome clearance sale) and they came bouncing in after they got dressed.  We hurried and dressed Max in his (this one is from my awesome sister in law) and snapped a shot.  Bed head, puffy sleepy eyes, sitting on my bed, camera phone, and they look like a million bucks.  

Please judge my parenting skills by how cute my kids are.  Thanks.