I’m riddled with guilt.  I feel terrible.  I’m a bad mother.

The truth of it is . . . I forgot to pack my youngest son’s school snack this morning.

There – I’ve said it!  For all the world to read!  And through this cyber-confession I hope that one day, when he’s older and can actually read, that he will read this post and know in his heart of hearts that his Mommy didn’t forget about him.  That she really does love him.  That he really is very important to her.

Because I know what’s going to happen when his Grade 1 teacher happily announces “okay class – it’s snack time!  Go get your snacks!” and he runs over to his little backpack.  And he opens it.  And it’s empty.  He’ll think “why didn’t Mommy send me a snack?”.  And his heart will be heavy.  And he will be confused.  And he will be hungry.  And he will sit quietly alone while all the other kids enjoy the snacks that their Mothers have loving packed for them.

(honestly – would you want to disappoint this face?)

But in my defense, here’s what happened . . .

I prepare and pack their lunches and snacks at night.  I also plan out their breakfast for the next morning and get the plates/bowls/glasses/cutlery/whatevers out and ready.  Because there is simply no time to be messing about with that stuff in the morning because I’m trying to get myself ready for work while I’m getting them up and dressed.  And since Willie’s schedule is different everyday (sometimes he has to leave early, sometimes he leaves late) one never knows what mornings he’s around to help out.  So I try to have everything under control as much as possible.  Because I’m big on control.  And organization.

So everything was ready and waiting to be taken out of the fridge and put into the backpacks this morning.  I grabbed his lunch, and his brother’s from the fridge.  I grabbed both their water bottles.  I even grabbed his brother’s snack off the counter.  But his frozen yogurt tube snack was in the freezer.  And as they say – outta sight . . . outta mind.  And so there it stayed.  Not to be eaten today.  Not to be eaten by a very cute little boy that usually doesn’t eat much of his breakfast because he’s not very hungry first thing in the morning, but really enjoys his mid-morning snack at school.  Nope.

Now, I didn’t realize that I had forgotten to pack his snack till I was halfway to work – at which point it was far too late to turn around.  I immediately placed an emergency call to Willie, but he was also halfway to work.  So we tried to come up with a good excuse.  First we thought of telling him later that night “you didn’t get a snack today because you only ate half of your snack yesterday, so maybe you’ll appreciate your snack more tomorrow!”  But that sounded a little harsh.  Then we thought of “you didn’t get a snack today because it’s your punishment for waking us both up when you came running into our room from that nightmare you had last night!”  But that didn’t really sound good either.

So I’ve decided to go with the “honesty is the best policy” defence.  Because that’s one of the life lessons I try to teach my boys.  So I will simply tell him that I’m really sorry, and that I simply forgot to get the yogurt tube out of the freezer.  And that I felt really bad and that I’ll try really hard to remember his snacks in the future.

And maybe, just maybe, if I’m lucky, he’ll say “oh – I didn’t even notice that I didn’t have a snack cause it was so-and-so’s birthday and his Mom sent in treats for the class at snack time”.  Fingers crossed!