Concerts and Epic Fails and Winning Anyway

We had been talking about it and planning for it throughout the entire day. So excited, we decked her out for the occasion in her pioneer girl outfit, complete with Laura Ingalls braids and hanging bonnet. In the past, their charter-school-for-homeschoolers music concerts were all on the same night. This year, there are three concerts scheduled on three different dates for our family's five elementary students. I had it marked clearly on my calendar. February 17th, First Grade Concert. Clover's Night to Shine. It was also Meadow's approximate-estimate-randomly-chosen birthday. I had a lot to coordinate. So we met big daddy in town for a Happy approximate-estimate-randomly-chosen Birthday Fun Mickey D's run, including cupcakes and gifts, before we headed to the school to listen to the 1st grader in costume sing her blessed heart out.

Except it's Clover we're dealing with. No big surprise here...when it was time to hit the stage, the shy little female child just wouldn't go up. Period. No amount of cajoling, bribing, encouraging, or offering to march directly up on that stage full of pioneered first graders right along with her would do any good. She wouldn't budge and only hid her pretty embarrassed face in her dad's coat. 

Truth? I didn't mind. That's my babe! To be expected. We know the girl well. 

Then, just as we figured it was time to pack up our schoolhouse pride and sneak out the door and into our van of shame, one of the teachers called them up. SECOND GRADERS to the stage, please. 

Jayla: "Mom, did you hear that?"

Me: "Hear what?"

Jayla: "They just called 2nd grade to come up."

Me: "So what? The 1st graders are already on stage and Clover wouldn't go. We're going home."

Jayla: "What about Stryder?"

***Panic Button***Sound the Mental Alarm***Catastrophe Alert***Beep  Beep  Beep***Epic Mom Fail***You Will Burn In Maternal Ruin For all of Eternity While The Good Moms Who Would Never Use a Single Swear Word, Wear Yoga Pants Nor Forget Their Child's Concert Date and Time Tormentingly Mock You***

In Subpar Mom's Brain: "Oh! Stryder! He's in 2nd grade! Was his performance supposed to be tonight? But he's not in cowboy attire! Or farmer wear! Or general hillbilly red neck hick clothing! All those boys are wearing red bandanas and hats! Stryder has on a black and grey camo jacket!"

Frantic But Trying to Play it Cool Mom: "Stryder, honey, it's your night, dude! Let's get this jacket off you so you can run up on stage!" 

"@#$%^ fizzlestix! Your uncowboyesque Spiderman t shirt has a giant wad of gum stuck to the neck! How did that happen? Not stage worthy. You'll have to wear your jacket, okey dokey?" 

Stryder: "It's okay mom, I have on my cowboy boots!"

Mom: "SCORE!" 

A little wobbly, slightly unsure, just a bit jittery due to his disappointment for a mother's lack of preparation, the boy trotted up with his costumed classmates. Nothing screams you are not worthy of the badge of motherhood quite like sending your child up on stage in regular clothes with a bunch of dressed up kids whose moms got clearly got it just right. 

Whatever. 

My boy. Watching him up there, spur of the moment, totally unprepared and more than an ounce uncertain with a giant sticky mound hiding underneath his jacket caused my heart to rise high and soar and leap and rejoice and pulse big and red and sugary and happy, happy, happy. I've never loved him more than in that very minute. We locked eyes. His face! For a time, I forgot my blunder and could bear to harbor nothing but pure adoration and elation and ethereal pride. The guilt was erased. It effortlessly shifted to otherworldly love and it all stopped spinning and there was nowhere on earth but that exact moment on that snowy night in that charter school auditorium in Colorado Springs. As for me? Glowing. 

These wonderful, beautiful, brave and nervous and shy and courageous and costumed and underdressed children, I think they are going to be alright, even in spite of me.

I couldn't have greater fortune. 

Though I fail, I win.