25 Aug The Time I May Have Scarred My Kid For Life
With the new school year fast approaching, don’t make the same mistake I did. Consider yourselves warned…
Hi everyone from Toronto (*waving*)! I’m Emily Block, one of Liz’s oldest, GOOFIEST, filterless-est (is that a word?) friends. I was asked by my virtual opposite, Liz, to write a post about an experience I had last year with one of my kidlets (of course it had to be the GIRL child who happens to be the YOUNGEST of my two) If you add those two elements, plus the “experience” I was asked to share, you know it will be nothing short of a ‘disaster’.
Ok. Here goes. Ready? DON’T JUDGE ME. n’k?
The public school that my kidlets go to is VERY into award ceremonies. Basically, if they sneeze to an accidental tune of the latest song, they receive an award. This may be wrong but I am going to say it out loud. As much as I LOVE and OOZE pride when I see my kidlets on stage receiving an award, I CRINGE when I see my phone ring with the school phone number after school hours. You know what that call means? It usually means that in 8 hours, one of my children will be receiving a reward so I-need-to-drop-everything-because-I-don’t-have-a-life-or-a-job and be at the school at 8:30 AM (and YES I have a job and YES I kinda have a life so YES I’m being a bit facetious).
It’s funny, I never cringe seeing that number out of FEAR that my kids are in trouble. I never think of that (AND IF THEY ARE READING THIS, THEY’D BETTER NOT GET ANY IDEAS!).
Ok, back to my story. Please let me describe my kids a bit. I have two. I have a 13 year old boy who is very conscientious. He plays competitive hockey, is quite confident yet sensitive and VERY busy. A lot of the attention in our home, as much as we try to split it evenly, is usually on him simply because of his crazy schedule. Now enters my girl child; an eccentric, quirky HILARIOUSLY amazing child, still trying to find her “thing”. She has a beautiful voice and you will constantly hear her singing somewhere and she is very happy. We have tried EVERYTHING… from musical theatre to gymnastics to dance (think Elaine from Seinfeld-not a good match) singing, guitar, you name it. Needless to say, she feels she lives in the shadow of her older brother. Of course this is not the truth (as you can tell, I would tell you if this was true)…but it’s how she feels.
Ok now that you have a little background..my husband and I have promised each other and our kids that no matter what it is, we will try our best to BOTH be there to witness, in unison, an award, a game, anything that involves the children so that they always know there is someone in the audience watching.
One “fateful” Tuesday evening, my phone rings. It’s the school. Yup, you guessed it. It was AWARD TIME. My son’s teacher advised that the next morning (have I mentioned they give SO MUCH ADVANCED NOTICE?) he was going to receive an award. Of course, without hesitation and with MUCH grumbling (they don’t know that.. shhh), my husband and I attended this pride-provoking event. We snuck into the auditorium at 8:25 (ceremony started at 8:30) hoping that our children would spot us and they both did. That was the sign that one of them was receiving an award (we were not allowed to tell them).
Once my son received his award at 8:45, my husband and I were both OUTTA THERE in 30 seconds flat… Pictures were taken, posted to Facebook, Instagram and Twitter and life could resume.
Or could it? (insert EERIE music here)
So the day passes and I am on pickup duty, SO excited to recap the day with the kids and the award. I see my girl child exit school and come towards the car without her usual skip in her step. In fact, as I looked closer, I saw that her head was down and she was crying.
Uh-Oh. What happened?
You’re NOT gonna believe this.
She gets into the car and I ask her what’s wrong and she says, “Mummy, why did you stay for Tyler’s award and you didn’t stay for MINE?”
UMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMMM
OMG did she say what I think she said?
I quickly try to think back to whether I received a call from her teacher (which I didn’t). Did she tell me to stay? (NO).
FAILURE AS A PARENT RIGHT IN FRONT OF MY EYES.
I said WHAT??? You got an award???
She said, YES I got an award a bit after Tyler’s and when I looked for you you were gone!! (insert hysterical bawling)
OMG OMG OMG OMG…
I explained to her that I would NEVER EVER EVER miss her award if I had known about it. She had a new teacher who did NOT know the protocol (to whom I gave an earful in a fateful AFTER HOURS CALL she received!)
I felt terrible
I was devastated.
How could I do this to my already insecure daughter??
I sat down with her and explained to her that I would NEVER miss such a monumental (ok a bit dramatic but had to be) moment EVER. I explained that her IMBECILIC teacher didn’t tell me it was happening, otherwise I would have NEVER escaped from the auditorium in 3 seconds flat.
Thank GOODNESS she understood. But I felt TERRIBLE. TERRRRRRIBLE. I even bought her ice cream. Maybe even an American Girl. I can’t remember.
Needless to say, my husband and I now stay FOR THE WHOLE ceremony (just in case). Hmph.
When I posted this ‘experience’ on Facebook, I received a mixed bag of comments. I had the “haters” (well not really the haters but those who shared their experience and said what I did could remain with my daughter for the rest of her life) and I had the “sharers” (those who said they did the same thing I did and are SO happy I actually said it out loud and made them feel that they weren’t so bad).
I think she is long over it.. but I’m really not.
Has this ever happened to you? Would love to hear.
Like, REALLY, I would love to hear.
MWAH!
Em
Aside from mother-wife-daughter-friend, Emily Block is an entrepreneur. A graduate from McGill University in Sociology, she had an amazing career in client relations at a well known customs brokerage firm in Montreal. After moving to Toronto and after giving birth to her first child, with a Blackberry in her hand answering emails, she decided she needed a change. She needed something different.. something creative. She always had that creative spirit that couldn’t be squashed any more… so at the age of almost 30, Emily created STAMPING BELLA INC and never looked back. Her idea was not only employing talented artists, but also to offer the crafting world innovative and whimsical rubber stamp images. She created a “SISTAHOOD” of sorts where people of the same interests could unite and share their creations, meet other like minded people and just have fun.
At the age of 35, Emily also decided to pick up a paintbrush and become a self taught artist. This was her “therapy”.
She continues to run StampingBella, to paint, to collect her stationery, to journal and to keep trying to leave her creative mark in this big world.
You can find Emily here:
Instagram- @stampingbella
Twitter- @stampingbella
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