You've got a great smile!

I went to the last preschool meeting for Spunky Girl's school last night. It was a feel-good kinda meeting...passing out end of the year gifts for the teachers and for the Board members, remember when moments, and "let's appreciate each other" activities. One such activity went as follows: everyone got a piece of paper taped to their backs and then all of us moms went around and wrote something nice on all the other mom's papers. I was looking forward to reading my comments. I was mystified to see that 13 of the 15 moms commented on my nice smile. Huh?

I've been through this preschool before with my Sweetness (eldest daughter) and I know that I made much stronger connections with the mom's in that previous class than this one, but come on...13 moms had nothing more insightful to say about me than "You are always smiling"? What about my amazing wit? What about my sympathy's for bad days? At least they could remember all those Alligator-pushes I gave their kids on the swings. But nope...apparently I'm always smiling. Anyone who knows me knows that I am the first person to tell you about whatever personal crisis I'm having that day...always smiling? I just don't think so.

I wish I could see the other mom's papers. I know that I tried to write fairly personal comments for the other moms, but maybe "you've got a great smile" is as creative as some of the moms got. Regardless, it is time to push it out of my head and move on. It was a great year and I enjoyed the other moms and the teachers. The mom that I liked best will be sending her daughter to the same Kindergarten class that Spunky Girl will attend, so that is a Yippee for me (and she was one of the moms that DIDN'T write a "nice smile" comment). Oh yeah, I'm supposed to be past that. =)

What's so wrong with being late occasionally?

Okay, so we all know that I don't suffer from lateness. If anything, I arrive chronically early for life. I plan a half hour for every 20 minute drive just in case all the lights are against me, or there is a traffic snarl, or I accidentally lock myself out of my car at the gas station and need someone to quickly rescue me so I can still be on time to my destination.

Lately, though, I've been allowing myself to be late taking Cheyenne to preschool. There are just some mornings where getting out the door seems harder than others. This morning, Cade slept late. He usually gets up at 7 am, but at 9 am he was still sleeping. Normally I leave for preschool at 9:04. I woke up Cade at 9 and let him have a little breakfast before we left. Cheyenne was about 12 minutes late for preschool. I had to justify it to myself that being late was the right thing to do...after all, I PAY for preschool...it is supposed to be a convenience for me...and they do free time for the first 15 minutes of preschool anyway, so she isn't causing an interruption to circle time or anything. I think it is a bit odd that I have to convince myself that it is okay that she is late; on some level, it clearly feels not OK to me. I think it causes me more stress to be late than it does to make my family crazy while I yell like a banshee for everyone to get in the car so we won't be late. That doesn't seem logical...but how often are our core emotions actually based in logic?

Well, I'm off to get Cade down to nap. I wouldn't want him to be late for his arbitrary 1 pm naptime.