not my best afternoon

so, everything was fine until about 2:00. i had left this morning with an agenda. i had to get the boy's to school, get aiden to school, find a nail salon near the south shore area to purchase chase's teacher's b-day gift, get to my (much needed) hair appointment, swing through a drive-through to get lunch, and get back to aiden's school to pick her up in time to get to the boy's school to deliver the b-day gift. no problem.

everything went great until the getting to aiden's school to pick her up part. the freeway was closed and it was stand still along the feeder. glancing at the clock, i figured i would only be about 5 minutes late. no big deal. 5 minutes ended up being 10 and when i got to the school, she was 1 of 2 kids left. i already felt like a criminal at that point. however, it was about to get worse. i rounded the doorway and saw her teacher...ready to go home (if it weren't for the delinquent mom's who don't pick up their kids on time) and she said, "is everything okay?" i said, "yeah...it's just that getting here from the north is impossible with the freeway shut down." she just looked at me and said, "you do realize you missed the mother's day party today." this was more of a statement than a question. i, in complete horror and shock said, "WHAT????" she proceeded to tell me that it had been written in the news letter AND that she had sent an e-mail on tuesday. how could i have possibly missed it? i felt terrible. aiden was playing on the other side of the room and had missed the whole exchange and all i wanted to do was run to her and profusely apologize and tell her that i would buy her a pony to make up for my thoughtless mistake. that's when the teacher said, "yeah...she was 1 of only 3 kids whose mom's didn't come. she was pretty upset." ok. not only was i buying her a pony...but we were now taking a trip to disney world. i called for her and she skipped over to me and said, "mooooommmmmmyyyyyy" in her most loving and happy tone. had she forgiven me? she was talking to me. that was a good sign. i apologized and told her how sorry i was. i started crying like a baby and she said that it was okay. she gave me my presents that she had made which turned the knife in my heart a little more. in the car, on the way to the boy's school, we went over all the details of the party so that we can re-create it at home tomorrow. we are going to the grocery store in the morning to get all the same snacks and paper plates, etc.

fast forward to the boy's school. i delivered the pedicure gift card without a hitch, and checked both the boys out of their classes with only 5 minutes left in the school day. it was at this point that i realized i didn't have my keys. i combed chase's teacher's class...listened to the kids come up with all kinds of stories about who "took" them...and retraced my steps to the office where i thought i may have layed them down. keep in mind that all this traipsing about was happening with 3 kids following me around, just wanting to go home. we got out to the car and i saw them in my purse. through the windows. of the locked car. now...i didn't really feel bad about this because it was my first time to lock the keys in the car and i have driven all over creation rescuing chad from the very same dilemma on multiple occasion. i went and used chase's teacher's phone to call my knight in shining armour to come to our rescue. the conversation went like this:

mindy: "chad...i'm at the school and i locked the keys in the car."

chad: "how did you do that?"

mindy: "oh, i don't know. similar to the way you've done it a bazillion times."

chad: "silence."

we decided that i would start walking home with the kids instead of standing on the curb waiting. he would meet us at home to unlock the house. about 1/8th of the way into the trip, i said, "come on kids! this is like an adventure!!" that's when aiden started screaming that her foot hurt. her new flips had rubbed a blister and it was then that i had to go barefoot in order to convince her that it was ok to go barefoot. about 1/2 way into the trip, we ran into an unfortunate dead rat in the middle of the sidewalk. it was all furry and looked like it was sleeping. only with bugs on it. the kids...just seeing the tale of desperoux, didn't like that. and neither did i for that matter. i told them to walk in the grass to get around it and aiden freaked out about walking in the grass without her shoes. i ended up having to carry her. i couldn't look at that rat another minute. it was then that i decided that this had not been one of my finer afternoons.