Sometimes you’re the mom that forgets about Early Dismissal

I have mixed feelings about Early Dismissals but I do know that their purpose is for teachers to collaborate and learn about new techniques to help students succeed and I am all for that. What I failed to realize on my daughter’s first day of Kindergarten was that the first day of school was apparently a day that school officials decided was necessary for the first professional development meetings.

This was my first year with a kid in a M-F all day school. L went in PK at the school I taught at so our schedules were the same. Teaching part-time means I am also not always at school on the first day if it doesn’t fall on one of my contract days. However, L’s school gave us a calendar before the school year began that included dates of no school days, special events and every early dismissal day.

On L’s first day of school I was home with R, E and M. We had a fun morning, ate lunch and they all went down for a nap/rest time. A normal school day for L was to be finished at 3:50pm so we would have to leave home around 3:25pm if we were going to walk to pick her up. I was watching some TV around 2:50 when I get a call from L’s school. I panicked upon seeing the school name thinking L was hurt or sick or nervous or something terrible. It turns out L was fine…but she was waiting for me to get her since they got dismissed at 2:20pm that day.

Absolute horror came over me as I tried to comprehend the fact that I didn’t know what time to pick up my daughter on her FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL! When I told Andre, I said that we would tell no one of this day and that I felt like I had failed as a mom. I have actually never told anyone else about this until now. But I write it here to let you know that you are not alone. Sometimes we forget. Sometimes we don’t look at the school calendar. Sometimes we get too busy to take our kid to the park. Sometimes we forget to pack a peanut free lunch so our kid can’t sit by their friend with a peanut allergy. Sometimes we feed our kids a pizza lunchable for lunch because we can’t find the motivation to pack carved turkey and celery sticks instead. Sometimes the TV is on longer than we want in a day because we have to get too much work done.

The thing I’ve learned: Our kids are okay. Don’t let one mistake make you doubt your abilities as a parent.
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For every forgotten appointment or less than stellar lunch, there are moments we don’t remember what time it is because we are having too much fun outside. Or we lay in their fort we can barely fit into, cheer the loudest at a soccer game, have a surprise breakfast date with them or spend 25 minutes after dinner dancing to whatever music they want. They love you just as much as you love them, mistakes and all.