This morning everyone was ready to walk out the door by 7:15.  Kamryn’s lunch was packed, shoes were on, hair was done.  We don’t normally leave the house until 7:30 so a15 minute reprieve was nice.
Once we got to school, Kamryn went to her classroom and Rory and I went to fulfill some PTA duties.  After that, I stopped by the store to get a donut to reward Rory for being good and picked up the missing items from my dinner menu this week.
We were finally on our way home around 9:30.  The minute we walked in the door, I saw it.  Kamryn’s water bottle.  The sight actually gave me a little tingle of adrenalin.  It’s a water bottle for Christ’s sake, but I knew this was going to elicit one of two responses from my child.  1) She was going to be really upset and cry.  2) She was going to be pissed at me and I would have to hear about it the rest of the day.
I swear I’m not afraid of my child, but if you have kids, you know that they have certain triggers that throw them in a tailspin.  Kamryn’s trigger is not having something she is supposed to.  A pen instead a pencil, a red crayon instead of an orange, an apple instead of a banana…you get the picture.
I actually considered taking the water bottle to school.  What would the office ladies think?  They have water fountains all over the place.  It’s not like she was going to die if thirst in the 3 hours and 40 minutes that she was at school.
I decided that whatever reaction Kamryn had, she was going to have to learn that sometimes we don’t have everything perfect.
When it was time to go pick Kamryn up, I grabbed her water bottle and brought it along.  I saw her class walking out and I approached the gate with a little trepidation.  She took one look at me, smiled a big toothless smile and ran to me.  I told her I was sorry I forgot her water bottle this morning.  She looked up at me like I was insane and said, “That’s alright, Mom.”
Huh?  Forget that I was wrong about her reaction…what’s this “mom” shit?  What about Mommy?  With each tooth she lost, I lost a letter in my title.