I posted a video to Instagram Stories yesterday, and I'm really annoyed at myself about it. In the video, taken outside my son's piano teacher's house, I said that I had just realized that I'd forgotten to bring his piano music to the lesson for the second time in a row, and said it feels sometimes like my life is just one Mom Fail after the next. I forget the music. I'm late to pickup. I don't include vegetables in lunch (or dinner, sometimes). I love, love, love it when they're watching TV, because when they're watching TV I can breathe for a second.

The other day I ran into my friend as I was walking away from kindergarten drop-off - I'd been late, and had had to walk my son through the office (tardy slip! #momfail) - but she was later; so late that she wasn't even bothering to rush. We laughed when we saw each other - no words needed, because we've both seen each other be "that mom," the one frantically waving her arms and rushing past the horde of on-time parents walking in the other direction, yelling WAITWAITWAITWAITWAIT! while the door to the classroom shuts in our face.

Back to that video: My "I'm such a failure as a parent" video. I know that it's a teeny, tiny thing, forgetting your child's sheet music (even when you do it often). But as I dropped him off - flustered, my daughter crying from the car because she'd dropped her paper crown and couldn't reach it, hurriedly trying to explain during the second between the door opening and it closing again that it's totally my fault, I'm really sorry, I promise it won't happen again - I felt ridiculous, like a cartoon of a disheveled parent. Surely the "real" moms out there remember their child's music for piano class. Surely they don’t have to scream at their children to walk faster! in order to get them to class before the bell; surely they restrict screen time to an hour per day (weekends only!).