When Mommies Make Mistakes

The school yard

Things could be worse. Suppose your errors were counted and published every day, like those of a baseball player. ~Author Unknown

I thought I was having a really great Mommy weekend. I managed to spend individual one-on-one time with each of my children. My 3-year-old and I planted some bulbs. I took my 8- and 10-year olds on separate library trips. I played a full-court, no-foul, no-boundaries, no-time-outs, one-on-one basketball game with my twelve-year-old and let her beat me 22-0. We all went out to Friendly’s for dinner and ice cream.

Sunday night I took my two older girls out to buy Thanksgiving outfits. We aren’t big clothes hogs in this house, but for special holidays I like to make sure everyone has something beautiful to wear. They each picked out something gorgeous and I was trying on a flattering red blouse with scarf.

“Maybe I’ll wear this to my son’s Thanksgiving play,” I thought to myself, “When is that again? Friday? Wait, we have off this Friday, which means..it..must..have..been..this..past..Friday…OMG…OMG…OMG…”

I got home and ran to my son before my daughters could open their big mouths. He was playing Battleship with my husband. “Did you already have your Thanksgiving play?” I burst out. “Yeah,” he said, nonchalantly. The look of horror on my face told all to my husband. I ran upstairs to have a good cry.

I pride myself on keeping our complicated schedules in order. I have my little book in my pocketbook, which gets written on a large dry erase calendar in the laundry room. Around that are corkboards where the important flyers hang. But something went wrong with my system in this one particular case, and I was never going get back the chance to attend my son’s Thanksgiving play.

I emailed an apology to the teacher, asking if she knew of any parents who had videotaped the play. She wrote me back a nice note saying not to beat myself up over it and gave me a name. I emailed the person, who sent me a nice picture and promised to copy the video for me. So I will eventually get the chance to sit and watch the play with my son. In the meantime, I will be taking him out for lots and lots of ice cream.

I woke up still feeling bad, and was glad to find this quote by Henry David Thoreau : “One cannot too soon forget his errors and misdemeanors; for to dwell upon them is to add to the offense.”

I also liked Sophia Loren’s “Mistakes are part of the dues one pays for a full life.” And how about F. Wikzek’s “If you don't make mistakes, you're not working on hard enough problems. And that's a big mistake.”

I was thinking that I couldn’t go on writing this blog when I couldn’t do something really basic like attend a school play. Then I read Niels Bohr’s quote, “An expert is a man who has made all the mistakes which can be made in a very narrow field.”

And finally, from Alexander Pope, in Swift, Miscellanies, “A man should never be ashamed to own he has been in the wrong, which is but saying... that he is wiser today than he was yesterday.”

We are responsible for so much as mothers, and when we mess up the best thing to do is say “I’m sorry”, take a look at our priority list, and move forward.

The Championship Game

High Fly

It was like a miracle that my twelve-year-old daughter’s softball team made it to the final championship game. My husband even came home early so he could see the second half of it. The most important part was that we were there. As one dad said, “The rest of it is just gravy.”

We were the first from our team to get there and the other coach was apparently unaware of my daughters’ presence as he spoke to his girls. “He said they are going to win by a huge lead!” my ten-year-old reported to me. We love that coach because he is in charge of the travel teams, where they are learning a great deal, but she was indignant. She had made enough cupcakes to share with the other team and decided then and there that she was not going to share them.

Numerous complaints had been made over the week by the previously undefeated team that we had beat in the playoffs, attempting to protest on every ground possible. Therefore the head umpire was present, along with four of his best underlings. Several times per inning they all huddled together as we parents looked at each other quizzically.

We held them well until the third inning, when they started to score. I really didn’t care about the score; I just wanted to see what kinds of plays my daughter would make at first base.

I looked every now and then to check on my other children. My almost-three-year-old was adorable horsing around with some slightly older girls. My eight-year-old son had brought the boy next door and the three of them were over on a huge dirt hill, throwing dirt and pebbles; the coach’s son was wielding a huge sewer pipe from a trash heap. My ten-year-old daughter was playing near the boys with another coach’s daughter.

His cell phone rang. “The girls have to use the bathroom,” he reported. Only in 2009 will a girl use a cell phone to talk to her dad when they are only a few hundred yards away! My husband was now there to take our toddler, so I ran over to take the girls to the school.

We found that the soap was working but the sinks were not; however, the water fountain was in order. The girls were busy playing with the soap and looking curiously at the wrestling team as they practiced in the gym. I walked out of the school just in time to see my daughter bat a run in – one of the only two runs we would score in that game. I jumped up and down in excitement.

We lost 7 to 2, but we were happy. My toddler was just happy to finally be allowed to eat the cupcakes we had made for the occasion. There were enough siblings from our team that they all disappeared quite quickly.

I got an email from that other coach that my daughter played a great game - and so, he was forgiven quite as quickly.

First Reconciliation

We are starting to get excited about my son’s upcoming First Communion. He knows all his prayers by heart and is ready to make his First Reconciliation. The girls will be making their annual Lenten Confession at the same time.

In our parish we have a public confession for families. Three priests sit on the altar. The entire body of parishioners has a brief prayer service, followed by the invitation to come onto the altar for confession. Parishioners line up and go to whichever priest is available at the moment. Confession is made quietly and is only “public” in that it is made out in the open in front of the parish. Children who are making theirs for the first time fill out a card and hand it to the priest so that the date of their First Reconciliation can be recorded by the Church.

My children are always nervous when it is time to go. They have trouble coming up with their list of sins, and worry about what the priest will think of them. They think they will stumble somewhere in their recital of the Act of Contrition.

But they always come down off the altar with bright smiles on their faces. The priest is always so understanding, and they feel so good getting the guilt of their sins off their little hearts and minds.

Last night at dinner, the children were talking about what sins they might confess. They were each full of suggestions about what sins each of the others should confess!

Then they asked me if I would be going up with them. “I don’t know,” I answered.

“Well you don’t have any sins, do you?”

“Everyone has sins,” I said.

“What kind of sins could you possibly have?” This question coming from my eleven-year-old, it truly warmed my heart. Of all my children, and at the age at which criticism of all family members comes naturally, she should know the best that I am not perfect. That she should still view me as largely inculpable was humbling.

“Well, that’s between me and God, same as for you.”

Thus ended the plucking of logs from each of the other’s eyes, and the soul-searching began.

Painting Above: Christ Cleansing the Temple, Berdardino Mei, 1650, Getty Museum.

What's Red and White All Over?

I suppose it happens to every mother at least once.

I pulled the white wash out of the drier late last night and repeatedly moaned, “Oh no. . .oh no. . .oh no. . .”

“What’s the matter?” my husband asked.

“Somebody must have left a red crayon in their pocket. . .”

Every single item was streaked with red lines. The drier, too, was streaked red inside the drum.

After examining each piece, I realized there were no pockets in any of them.

“The baby must have stuck a red crayon in the laundry basket,” I said.

“Go ahead, blame the baby,” my husband joked.

I put everything back in the washer, and dumped a few cups of bleach in, letting it soak for a half hour and hoping for the best. I let the machine complete the cycle before going to bed.

When I woke up this morning, I again pulled each piece out, one by one. A few socks had been spared, and the dish towels were worn ragged to begin with, but all the undershirts, and especially all of my son’s uniform shirts, were irreparably harmed. I found the real culprit, a pair of Spiderman undies with a red waistband. Who in their right mind would invent such a horrid thing?

I tried one more wash with about a quart of bleach. Some pieces came out a little better, but my son was going to need a whole new set of uniform shirts. Good thing he has gym tomorrow, and will need a white shirt for only one more day before Easter vacation. He was growing out of that size anyway, I further reasoned, trying to mentally minimize my loss.

Today is the traditional day to go to confession before Easter, and I thought my laundry problem could physically represent the need to have our sins washed away by the Blood of Jesus. We can do all the good works we like to wash our dirty laundry but only He can take those red stripes of sin away. By His Stripes we are healed.

“If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrightousness.”
I John 1:9

Painting above:
No. 33 Scenes from the Life of Christ: 17. Flagellation
1304-06
Fresco, 200 x 185 cm
Cappella Scrovegni (Arena Chapel), Padua

Failing in our Fasts

On Ash Wednesday, the baby turned her dinner bowl over onto her head. She looked adorable in her silly “hat”.

Then I remembered what had been in the bowl.

“Flounder! Fish hair! Oh no! Bleah bleah!”

Having fish for dinner is no sacrifice at our house. It is a great excuse to browse in the fish department and try new ways to make it.

My eldest daughter said that she was going to give up dessert for Lent. “All except for Fridays,” she said, “because I already give up meat those days.”

I hated to be a stumbling block for her, but I had already begun a batch of chocolate chip cookies. This was part of my new strategy, based on some advice from my Nanna, to give the baby baked goods before bedtime. This has worked all week in filling her up so she can sleep through the night.

“Are you sure about that resolution, honey?” I asked.

“Well, since we had fish today maybe I can have the cookies tonight.”

Later, my husband decided he would give up his nightly pint of ice cream.

Thinking of the scripture, “As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord,” I thought, “Why don’t we all follow suit and give up ice cream together.”

After all, much as we love our ice cream, this was one that would not rely on our self control. As I do the shopping, all I had to do was not stock the freezer with ice cream for 40 days. I thought maybe this would be too easy for the family, and not count fully as a sacrifice.

But then I remembered that this is what we are to do on a daily basis to avoid sin. “Flee from evil,” we are commanded. We are to remove ourselves from situations that tempt us to sin.

I know I may seem to be contradicting my last post, in which I said food was not my first choice as a sacrifice. This is one way I can make it easier for my family to give up something for an entire 40 days. I am also encouraging everyone to make their own sacrifices in addition to that.

I announced my own, to give up “critical complaining”. The kids rejoiced until I explained further. This doesn’t mean I can’t ask the kids to clean their rooms. It just means I have to do it in a more constructive way, complimenting them first on what they have done, and gently asking them to improve their messy ways.

Within minutes of this proclamation, I had already broken my promise.

On Day Three of Lent, many of us are in a similar predicament. We have already cheated on our personal Fasts and wonder if we should just give up, or perhaps exchange one vow for a new and easier one.

St. Paul complained that he was unable to stop sinning. He failed what he set out to do, and wound up doing what he did not want to do. But did he give up and go back to his old self, Saul? No, he knew that “we have all come short of the Glory of God”, and he simply asked God to help him to fight his sinful nature.

So I encourage everyone to stick to their vows. If you break your fast, ask Christ to forgive you and give you the strength not to do it again. That is why He died for us, so that His Blood may continually wash away our sins. This is why we celebrate Lent.

Painting above:
“Landscape with the Temptation of Christ”
Augustin Hirschvogel, 1545. State Hermitage Museum.