Forget me not

On friday I forgot to pick Jude up from preschool.

Forgot. Totally, totally, totally forgot.

It was a day out of the norm, the other three kids were at a day of school holiday activities and I was picking up two extra kids and bringing them home with me too. I had an old friend dropping over in the late evening with his kids and then I was meeting my mum and sister for dinner. So lots to plan and think of and fit in.

Except for Jude, I didn’t plan that very well. At all actually.

Things like this don’t happen to me. I am probably the most organised person I know and am actually really annoying with how I keep things in order and my poor husband will probably end up in an early grave as an escape from it  .. “don’t get any dirt in that coffin will you”.

The alarming thing is that I didn’t even think about Jude the whole day. Normally from about 1pm I’ll be clock watching in order to pick him up at 2.40 so I can get to the next two pick up locations to get the rest of my kids. It’s all very precise and I do it at the same time every single week.

But on friday I didn’t. It’s just so weird.

I had to pick the other kids up at 3pm so I left in time to beat the long weekend traffic up the highway. I can’t remember what I did in the car the whole way there but obviously I didn’t think about Jude. In fact it wasn’t until I took one look at Holly and her friend Claudia and saw them looking at my side for something (like a small person maybe) that I remembered.

It was almost half an hour after I was supposed to be there. I was so horrified. So I quickly thought up a really fantastic excuse to tell the preschool about why I was late and concocted a great story.

I phoned the preschool and when they answered I forgot all about my made up story and yelled … “I FORGOT … I AM SO SORRY, I FORGOT ABOUT MY CHILD. I AM THE WORST PARENT IN THE WORLD”.

His teacher told me she was just looking for my number and not to panic because Jude was fine despite the fact there were no children left and the cleaners had arrived.

So another 20 minutes later I arrived back at the centre with five kids in tow to pick him up. When I got there he was sitting inside all by himself and I nearly died from a broken heart.

How the hell do you forget to pick your 3 year old up? How? How did he not cross my mind the whole day?

Anyway I felt bad about it all weekend until on monday I was in a shop buying Holly’s birthday party invitations and I saw this in the selection of cards they sold.

So maybe I’m not the only one after all?