Like many schools in the Northeast, my DS had a snow day for Valentine's Day (he is in preschool, but it is part of a larger school). Actually, he was hardly in school the two weeks prior due to snow days, sickness, etc (he attends 3 days per week). Last week was school vacation week, so his class had a belated Valentine's Day party yesterday. I felt like a total flake...he brought home a painted bag with little valentines and treats from his various classmates. I know that there are 17 or 18 kids in his class, so I counted the little cards. He was probably one of maybe two or three kids who didn't distribute valentines. Most of the cards also had his name on it; I was thinking, "I must have missed the memo, because I didn't get a list of names for this." It is very possible that I DID miss the memo, since DS was absent the Friday before Valentine's week and they usually send home notices on Fridays. Not to mention, with DD and DS taking turns being sick for the last few weeks, teaching, school vacation, deadlines coming and going with my diss proposal and trying to do marathon work sessions this past weekend to submit a fairly complete draft, getting the valentine cards slipped my mind. To be honest, I was also unsure if they were going to be distributing cards. Since I've been feeling unreasonably guilty about this, I started to look through some of DS's old school papers. I noticed the January newsletter from his teachers; it did mention at the end that a Valentine's party was going to be planned for Feb, and that a list of the students' names would be distributed ahead of time. I must have missed that, or I must have just forgotten. I even saw some cards on sale when I took DS to the store on Sunday, but I thought, "they probably aren't going to do anything at this point." Ah well. I just feel like the lone flaky parent who forgot. I even forgot to get little cards for both DD and DS to distribute at day care, but I noticed that only a select few of the kids actually distributed cards there (well, mostly the parents did, of course, since the majority of the kids are 3 and under!).
The whole point of this rant is that I don't know why I feel so bad about this whole thing. I even kept saying last night to DS, "I'm sorry that I forgot to send cards with you to school." He could have honestly cared less-- he was more excited about the cards and treats he got, and he really didn't care much WHO each cards was from. (Of course, being in preschool, he can identify letters but he really can't read the names anyway). Then, why do I feel so bad??? I remember a similar thing happened last year with something at his old preschool, and I posted something on facebook about it. Several parents made comments saying that they've done these things at many points of time in the past; it is human to do so, and it isn't going to ruin your kids' lives if you forget stuff like this every now and then. Of course, part of it has to do with the fact that I feel so busy and scatter-brained, despite having an online and print calendar; sometimes I feel like all of this is taking over my life and I WISH that I had more time to put more thought into these little things. However, as was pointed out by my fellow parent friends, our kids often have a different point of view. They remember other things that are more significant. For instance, fun, quality time that we've spent with them, even if it doesn't seem major to us-- like going to a playground, or taking them to a museum. I guess that I should just let this incident go. After all, it wasn't deliberate. My son was more excited that he got to see his friends after almost 2 weeks; he also had his first swim lesson yesterday; he was happier about the time we were able to spend together at a museum on Friday and the time that he was able to spend with friends and family at a cousin's birthday party on Saturday.
As parents, we are just often too hard on ourselves.
The whole point of this rant is that I don't know why I feel so bad about this whole thing. I even kept saying last night to DS, "I'm sorry that I forgot to send cards with you to school." He could have honestly cared less-- he was more excited about the cards and treats he got, and he really didn't care much WHO each cards was from. (Of course, being in preschool, he can identify letters but he really can't read the names anyway). Then, why do I feel so bad??? I remember a similar thing happened last year with something at his old preschool, and I posted something on facebook about it. Several parents made comments saying that they've done these things at many points of time in the past; it is human to do so, and it isn't going to ruin your kids' lives if you forget stuff like this every now and then. Of course, part of it has to do with the fact that I feel so busy and scatter-brained, despite having an online and print calendar; sometimes I feel like all of this is taking over my life and I WISH that I had more time to put more thought into these little things. However, as was pointed out by my fellow parent friends, our kids often have a different point of view. They remember other things that are more significant. For instance, fun, quality time that we've spent with them, even if it doesn't seem major to us-- like going to a playground, or taking them to a museum. I guess that I should just let this incident go. After all, it wasn't deliberate. My son was more excited that he got to see his friends after almost 2 weeks; he also had his first swim lesson yesterday; he was happier about the time we were able to spend together at a museum on Friday and the time that he was able to spend with friends and family at a cousin's birthday party on Saturday.
As parents, we are just often too hard on ourselves.
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