My "mom-of-the-year" moment

It's Monday. I should have known better than to think I'd be able to escape the day without some type of unexpected excitement.

This week and last have been slightly crazy, well, on a 4-year old's scale anyway. Soccer started up last week, and swimming is still wrapping up, add that to horseback riding lessons, and the boy has a very full week. He seemed to be handling it all super well until the soccer game on Saturday where he was running aimlessly on the field. This evolved into a major meltdown by early evening, and bedtime was a colossal disaster. Being that his birthday party comes at the pinnacle of this next week, I really wanted to work hard at keeping things chill. Mostly I just want the boy to enjoy his own birthday party. 

Tonight was swimming. Little r would tell you that swimming is his favorite...oh, and soccer is his favorite, too, oh and horses, he loves riding horses... We are taking a break from swimming during soccer season, so today was his last lesson for awhile. He takes lessons at the "Y", so baby c and I swim while little r is in his class. I always like to get there early so that little r can enjoy swimming for awhile. So I got my dinner prepped, double and triple checked that I had everything we needed in each of the bags (I forgot goggles last week, and that was a HUGE disaster), and loaded baby c up into the car. 

Little r was a complete chatterbox when I picked him up today talking about everything they did in school (did I mention how much this kid loves his school?!), so, we took our time getting to the Y knowing we would still have plenty of time left for some fun swimming before lessons started. We walk into the locker room and I pull everything out of the bag.  Do you ever have those moments when all is good in the world and then the air gets sucked clean out of your body? All of it, all of the air, was completely gone. Little r's swim trunks were not there. In the whole scheme of things, this is not the end of the world, but to a 4 year old on his last day of swim lessons when he LOVES swim lessons more than anything EVER (except soccer and horses, of course), this becomes a mom's worst nightmare. We had 20 minutes until lessons started and we live 20 minutes away from the Y. 

So, what did I do? I contemplated apologizing profusely and driving somewhere to buy little r a huge milkshake to earn his forgiveness, but the mom in me had to figure out a way to make this work. Baby c's trunks were obviously too small, and the weather cooled off a ton this weekend, so we literally argued all morning about how he was NOT going to wear shorts today. Instead, we packed back into the car, there were many "this is so stupid" and "I'm such an idiot" comments flying out of my mouth, while little r was trying to wrap his head around his mother's insanity. At one point he said, "you are so goofy, mom, and you're right, this is stupid." Awesome when kids get it right, isn't it?

We went to Walmart. I hate Walmart. Sorry, I said it, but I just really do. But hey, everyone always tells me they have everything you want, anytime you want it, and it was the closest big box store to the Y. We had the talk about not getting distracted in the store, running as fast as we can, and how I was really sorry but he was going to be a little late for his lesson. He was such a trooper. Traffic literally sucked, and the Walmart was PACKED. 

This store probably has everything you could possibly ever need or want for a super cheap price as long as you are buying it in season. Clearly the end of September is NOT when you buy swim trunks because they had but one pair left on the clearance rack and it was a size 8. Yes, we actually contemplated buying the stupid things until little r looked at me and said, "mommy, they are just way too big." I felt deflated, until the woman standing next to me handed me a pair of gym shorts in little r's size. She said that she didn't need them, if I could use them, so we grabbed the shorts and ran. The check out lines were horrible, but we finally got through. The poor little guy was stripping in the car in the parking lot. I started the car as soon as I heard, "mom, I got it, these are going to work!" HA! Pure comedy, right?

We finally get back to the Y, at this point only 10 minutes late. Little r puts his shoes on and he stands up to get out of the car and the shorts fall down. Yes, you read that right, the shorts fell off of his tiny little butt. Seriously?! We finagled my goggles (which I actually remembered this time) around his waist to hold them up, and he was happy as can be. We ran into the pool, and he dove right in without looking back.

I really wanted to get a picture, but I honestly had no idea where my phone even was at this point. Some how, in some way, it worked. Who forgets her son's swim trunks when the whole reason for going to the gym is for him to swim??!! Yes, mom-of-the-year, RIGHT here.  And you know that as soon as the boys were in bed, my wine was poured and I'm already sipping it. Holy cow, this better not be indicative of the way things are going to go this week...