I feel like I should label this part one of a series entitled “Letting Go of Perfect”, because there is so much to be said and to be honest so much I am learning in this area of motherhood.
A couple of weeks back, my five year old had a dress rehearsal for her upcoming dance performance. I had a babysitter confirmed, rides for both of the older boys to baseball practice and back all lined up and my husband planned on leaving work early so he could also attend. Grace was so excited, she had been practicing her dance routine all week.
We arrived to the performing arts center and the parking lot looked a little empty. Perhaps, people just knew of a different location to park where they didn’t have to pay. As we approached the building we didn’t see anyone going in, found all of the doors locked and peering through the glass not a single light was on.
Aaron asked, “Are you sure it was tonight? Maybe, we have the wrong time.” I pull up my email to double check the details only to realize that we were at the wrong performing arts center!! We had driven to the one 45 minutes away from our house and I had not realized that she was performing at the one just 15 minutes down the road!! I was mortified. My heart sunk.
Now 45 minutes away and Grace scheduled to be on stage in five minutes! As I explained to her my HUGE mistake and that we wouldn’t make it in time for her to dance, tears started streaming down her cheeks and mine. I sat in the back seat with her for the long 45 minute drive home to hold her as she cried so many tears of disappointment.
To top it off this was the one performance Aaron was going to be able to watch, because of a coaching commitment that coming weekend. If you have ever had a moment of letting your children down you know exactly how I felt. There was nothing I could do. I longed to go back in time, double check the address and redo it all again.
I frantically messaged a friend and asked her to tell the teacher what had happened, so she knew we were just not showing up. To cheer Grace up a bit, we decided to stop by the rehearsal so she could at least see the stage that she would be on.
As we walked through the doors, an instructor was checking everybody in. I told her we just wanted to see the stage, since we missed the performance time. She knew who I was and told me to quickly get on Grace’s tap shoes. They were already working on rerunning her song again, since a few of her classmates were still around. The biggest smile came upon my little girl’s face and the biggest sigh of relief fell upon me. She tapped her heart out and we celebrated by taking her out for pizza after! Whewf!!
It was a moment of truly recognizing the frailty of my humanity. A lesson in humility, that as hard as we try as parents to be perfect and have it altogether, we are going to make mistakes, some big and some small. There will be moments we disappoint our children, moments we don’t meet all of the expectations, moments we fail. It is important to remember that we are only human, in Christ is found perfection. In him our parenting, our marriages and our being are perfected.
So there you have it, it may top as my most mortifying mess up as a mom. Perhaps it’s the gray hairs finding their way framing my face, the lack of sleep or just life with five active kids. What ever the reason, I am sure there will be more in the years ahead during this journey of motherhood.
Oh and just last week I thought baseball practice ended 30 minutes later than it actually did. So there I was, the mom showing up incredibly, incredibly late! We will end it there, lesson is we must not take ourselves too seriously. Happy Friday!!
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