Breath...that's important

Today I tried out the mantra of a friend...

"I chose this. I chose to have children. I have good children." Repeated as long as necessary.

So, James, Hannah and I had a dentist appointment this afternoon. After work I called Hannah's school to tell them I needed to pick her up at 1:2o. Then I called James's school to tell them I needed to pick him up at 1:30. That secretary lectured me on calling earlier so she wouldn't have to interrupt his class by taking a note to him. I couldn't even get a word in edge-wise to tell her that I was calling as early as possible since I work at 7:15 AM. Then she told me that James was in the seminary building and I'd have to call them.

So I call the seminary building and they say..."James isn't here."

So then I'm thinking, my teenager is going off the deep end. He's ditching seminary. He's probably goofing off and getting into drugs. He ditched school and now he's lying, bleeding in the street somewhere and no one knows who he is. (Moms, you know how it is when our kids aren't where we expect them to be. We think of the worst thing possible.)

Needless to say, James didn't make it to his dentist appointment, and I was dreaming up all kinds of consequences for him.

And I started breathing deep and repeating the above mantra.

Finally, when James came home from school he had a legitimate reason for not being in seminary. Problem was he forgot when it was happening and therefore, couldn't tell me. Tim had us spoiled because he was always where he needed to be. John would come home late or this or that, but ALWAYS had a good reason for doing what he had done. We couldn't punish him for putting someone else first and helping them, etc. So, today with James...he had a good reason, his communication was the problem.

After talking to him about it all I told him that I'm happy that I have good kids, that when we have times like this I can trust that they have a really good, reasonable excuse and aren't just out bumming around.

Definitely, a not so good mom moment, although I did handle it rather well when he finally came home.

Thanks, Lisa, for the mantra.