Confession: I knew I was going to be late to the show, but I thought the first-grade music concert was up first. And you guys? I was OK with being late to my first grader’s concert because I am clearly a terrible mother.
My kindergartener—my very last baby—was so excited about her concert. She reminded me every day for a week that she was standing in the front row and that she knew all of the words to all of the songs. This was something I didn’t need to be told, though, because she sang the songs to me every day at breakfast, usually after school, and again in the shower before bedtime. She was radiating with excitement about the show, quivering with it, even.
My first grader was a little more blasé about his show—excited, sure, but world-weary. He performed in a concert last spring, you see, so he wasn’t quite as ebullient as his sister. That’s why I thought it would be OK to run a little late. I’ve seen him perform. He’s seen me see him perform—the whole routine had lost a little bit of its magic.
Shortly after I got in my car on concert afternoon, a good thirty minutes away from the kids’ school, I got a 10—minute kindergarten concert reminder on my phone, realized my mistake, and started to freak the freak out. All I could think of as I raced around crowded parking garage corners and liberally used both of my middle fingers in “greeting” to any driver whose car I barreled around as I tried to peel out onto the street was my kindergartener’s shiny, hopeful face at the breakfast table when she described the dance moves she would perform carefully on the riser– the riser she was so excited to stand on because kindergarten is magic.
I jumped out of my super cool, super fast minivan 15 minutes late to the show, hoping against hope that the concert was delayed because the classes were super squirrely as they entered the gym, which could totally happen, you guys, because have you MET a kindergarten class lately? OMG.
The gym doors were closed and locked, so I pounded on them desperately, and an impatient looking phy. ed teacher let me in. I practically fell into the gym, a stereotype of a working mom whose work-life balance is seriously out of whack, and immediately caught my daughter’s eye. She looked so cute standing in the front row in the sorority-girl-goes-to-the-bar full-length romper she insisted on wearing because wanted to “look like a bride” (I don’t know what that means either).
When she saw me, her face turned brick red and she burst into wet tears. “Mommy!” she yelled, loud enough for every parent and teacher in the room to hear. “Mommy! We just finished our grand finale! YOU MISSED THE WHOLE THING!”
A hundred perfect mom-bobbed heads swiveled in my direction, and I wanted to sink through the floor of the gym.
Panicked, I thought what would my husband do? The answer floated down to me from the florescent lights above: HE WOULD LIE.
So, I did. Quickly. Smoothly. Without any regrets.
“No!” I exclaimed, ignoring the principal’s directions that parents stay behind the orange cones at the front of the gym and rushing toward the risers. “I saw the whole thing! I have been sitting in the back the whole time, but I had to go potty, and I came in the wrong the doors when I got back from the bathroom. I didn’t hear the last song because I was in the potty, but I saw the whole rest of the show, and you were amazing!”
She looked at me uncertainly for a few seconds chewing on the inside of her velvet cheek. “I thought I heard you say ooooooh when we were dancing,” she whispered.
“YES YOU DID!” I gulped. “BECAUSE YOU WERE SO CUTE!”
She believed me, I think, because she wanted to, because it was so much better to think her mom has a weak bladder and is a grown up who says potty than to think her mom missed the most important moment of her life thus far.
Her teacher sent me a video, and so did a couple of my friends who took pity on me. And the videos? Are heartbreaking. There’s my daughter all dressed up in the front row, her blond head moving back and forth, her wide blue eyes roving the crowd, looking hard for the mommy she just knows has to be in the audience somewhere.
Have you ever missed a school function you said you would attend? How did you handle it?
I had a mandatory work meeting an hour away the day of my daughter’s Holiday concert. The meeting was scheduled to end at 5pm and the concert was at 6pm. Even with no traffic, I’d be late, with trying to find parking and then actually getting into the school, now add rush hour traffic and no guarantee that the meeting would end on time. I knew I wasn’t going to be there, I told her I wasn’t going to be there but told her Daddy and her Grandparents would be there and I’d watch the video and Daddy would send me pictures. I was really fine with it, until the day of the concert. I kept praying my meeting would end early and I could swoop in like super mom and surprise her. The meeting ended finally ended at 5:30. I went to a restaurant near my meeting, ate, watched the live-stream and cried.