Black Hawk Down

Mistakes as Opportunities. This is another Love and Logic concept. As I was reading that chapter this morning, I spied a book about which Molly insisted last evening, "I NEED it for tomorrow! My teacher said! We have to go to the library and get it TONIGHT!"

Later on, I noticed that her violin is still in her room. She has orchestra today.

Normally, at this point, this bad mother is blazing straight for Moll's school:

Poor Moll. She was nervous about auditions for the musical this afternoon and was concerned about forgetting the words to her song, and she also had to remember to bring shoes for gym today. Organization does not come easily to her.

Or me. It's something I fight all the time. I am organized because I know it makes life easier, but the process is painful for me. Jeff just gives in to not being organized and it turns around and bites him all the time. Sorry, Molly, that you got a double whammy of bad genes in that department.

I am not recommending Parenting with Love and Logic. I recommend parenting books with great hesitancy. (I read them with great hesitancy as well). But as I travel further down the road of parenting, I am learning that even though I might not agree with a book in total, there are things in the book that I can often use to help me out in the areas I am weak. I will never be pulled together like some of my friends who display impressive charts on their refrigerators, and have everything in color-coded bins (these would be the friends who snorted aloud when I used the phrase "I am organized"), but I hope to be able to better equip my girls for responsible adulthoods.

Molly, I love you and that's why I didn't bring your forgotten things up to school. Believe me, there are many parents who would think I did the wrong thing, too. But when you're attending college at Georgetown, I won't be able to rush over at a moment's notice to bail you out;) Mr. Frackenpohl's disappointment and whatever consequence Miss New Reading Teacher assigns will be more motivating than waltzing down to the office to retrieve the package your UH-60 Black Hawk helicopter of a mother airlifted to you. *

*I am aware that the reference actually involves an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, but I am more of a Black Hawk mama myself; I not only attack, but am also used for evacuations as well as dropping supplies. Plus, I think Black Hawks still look a lot cooler.