My Summer Spreadsheet with a side of bad leftovers

Bad Mom/Good Mom crap again. Or more like good, good, good, good, BAD, good, good, BAD.

There are six awesomely good things that happen and a couple of not so great things in my morning but unless I’m in my flow my brain loves to only fixate on the BAD. All the good gets lumped in a pile stuffed in that back, dark corner on my kitchen counter with the browning banana. The couple of times that I tripped up a bit, reacted with too much emotion, made a decision I doubted later…those moments are sitting on a silver platter with bows wrapped around them.

And then there is this thing – my Summer Spreadsheet.
This is a good thing.
This is the one thing that makes me feel really good. I love my summer spreadsheet with all the pretty columns. There is a column for each week in summer (there are 11 weeks) and a column for each kid with a blank column next to it to fill in the different camps we are considering. I have a notes section for the links to the camp websites where the forms are for online registration, a column for the fees and a column for me to check off when all the paperwork and payments are complete. BOOM! I feel super organized. And I’ve emailed two camps already to inquire about 2015 dates because they haven’t even been announced yet. That is how on top of it I am.

Truth – it actually embarrasses me. I know it sounded like I was all braggy braggy about it but that was just a front. I’m embarrassed to be ‘THAT’ mom. ‘That’ mom that has 11 weeks of summer all organized before Valentine’s Day while my other Mom friends are still trying to figure out plans for spring break.

Spreadsheets for summer somehow equals Super Mom.

I like being the real Mom that calls my friends ranting about my awful morning trying to get out of the house by 7:30am for a meeting while my 10 yr old is heading towards a meltdown because his boots are wet from the night before and he is refusing to wear them to school and apparently I’m the only one that can come up with any solutions but I need to finish curling my hair and get out the door so he leaves for the bus stop in his crocs which results in a call from the teacher letting us know that our son came to school without boots today and therefore is not allowed to go to recess. (first world problems, check).

I read a blog recently that talked about how there’s something wrong when you’re just being a good mom now. Or something like that. I wanted to hyperlink it here but I can’t find it (I’m not that organized). It is refreshing that moms can finally be real about the sucky times too. We are okay in our imperfections…even beautiful and loved. We are giving each other ‘Me Too’ love when we open up about our own temper tantrums.

So today instead of feeling good about my summer organizational skills I was embarrassed about them when perhaps it made more sense for me to be embarrassed that Leo went to school in crocs (there are 3 feet of snow and it is 15 degrees out there!). Or perhaps it would make sense to be embarrassed that I fed him questionable leftovers (they smelled okay). And I proceeded to make myself something different because I wasn’t sure if the leftovers were good and then I watched closely as he took the first couple of bites to see if he made any disgusting faces.

I might have poisoned him with bad leftovers but I’ve got 8 out of the 11 weeks of summer accounted for already. And I know I’m a GREAT Mom!