Bad Mom

Every week for about the past 6, my middle child Anthony, comes home with a slip from the elementary school library showing that he has not returned a book called Fat Bat and Swoop and he owes an increasing fine. Now - it's not like this is the first time one of his books has gone missing. It happens all the time! Sigh. The missing book has always shown up and the minuscule fine is paid. But this was a little different. This had been going on for a while.

So each week, when we get the slip, we ask him if he looked for the book (perhaps in that drawer full of marbles in your classroom where your missing glasses were found????) and every time we ask, he stomps his foot and yells, "I can't find it!" And each time he does that, we sigh, roll our eyes and one of us goes off and searches through the bookshelves, peruses the cluttered corners of the house and looks behind his bed in the hopes that the missing book has materialized this week. Probably spent a good 3-4 hours looking for that book over the past 6-8 weeks.

Yesterday afternoon I received a call from one of Anthony's teachers. She informed me that Anthony was becoming increasingly agitated on "library" day - acting out in the library, blah, blah, blah and she felt it was because he was stressed about getting yet another "slip" from the librarian. She was "merely" pointing out that perhaps the situation could be taken care of - in other words - go pay for the book so this kid will stop being a pain in the a_ _. Sigh again. That freaking book is somewhere and I just hated the idea of paying for it but obviously, "Bad Mom" needed to give in and let this one go.

After one last search of the house and one last plea to my child to look for the book, I told him that tomorrow, I would accompany him to the library and he would have to pay for the lost book out of his Christmas money.

So today, we went to the library and paid $13.95 for the missing book. The librarian reassured me that if we found the book, we would get our $$ back and I reassured her that the book would definitely show up, perhaps as early as tomorrow!
She gave a little chuckle and I whispered under my breath, "Go ahead, laugh lady, but don't go spending that money because I'm getting it back!" (Okay - I didn't really do that! Sigh.)

Burden lifted. Another issue put to rest. The book is out of my life. I'm still bruised from being the "Bad Mom", but hey - I'm trying here...at least it wasn't a call from the teacher like last year asking me to clean out his backpack because he spilled applesauce in it 2 weeks ago and it was starting to stink. Now THAT'S Bad Mom!!! Ha!!!

Anyway, a few hours later, I'm waiting at the bus stop in my trusty mini-van. The kids get off the bus and come piling into the vehicle all talking at once, competing for my attention. Through the chaos, I hear an excited voice say, "Mom! I found my library book!!!"

WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!????????????? did you say????????????

Epilogue:

Ahhhhh - HELLOOOOOOOO???? Is anybody IN there???? You know where he found the book?????? IN HIS DESK.

"Ummmm - I forgot to look there, Mom."

"And I suppose the teacher who called me forgot to look there also?"

Actually kinda feeling like gloating joy over this one! (Happy sigh!)