“Where is mommy?” Is the first thing Ivy always asks when Conrad goes to pick her up. It hurts his feelings. And it is actually a bit annoying. Even when you expect them to ask a certain question and you know they don’t mean to hurt your feelings, it still stings. The way they turn their nose even asking about what’s for lunch, and it annoys me, the same way Conrad feels pushed aside when the girls ask where is mom instead of saying hello. 

Today ivy arrived all quiet. Conrad thought she was tired. She was pensive in the car too. She sometimes is. But today she went straight to her room and played quietly. Sometimes she takes a nap without telling us. If she feels tired she simply rests. We gave her space but as she came down I asked her how her day was. She had a goofy smirk on her face. She said she painted pumpkins, as I knew was the plan. But then she said the teacher gave her a pumpkin. But she should have brought one from home. That was news to me. I asked her if all other kids brought their own pumpkins. She said yes. And she was very embarrassed that she was the only one who didn’t bring one. I told her I would have been embarrassed too. It’s just what I’d do naturally in that situation, and I apologized for not catching the note where the teacher said to bring pumpkins. But I never let things slide and I had to go hunt for that information. Where could she have said about the pumpkins. I want to know so I wouldn’t repeat the mistake. Well, the teacher created a whatsapp group where she is the only one who can write. Easy, right? But she write extremely long texts. Like blog posts. Where information is mixed with feedback from the week and issues that arise with kids who misbehave. I had to tap on read more on a few of these texts to find information I need. This type of communication would not fly in the business world. Structure! Concise. To the point. Bullets. 

I had birthday parties to host and to drive to, goes from out of town, meals to cook, apartment for rent to manage, medical papers to drive to and from. The pumpkin fell through the cracks.