This Forgotten Poster Board Is Parenting In A Nutshell
Of course! We’d love to run out after dark for the thing our kids forgot they needed
We’ve all been there. Our kid has suddenly bolted up the stairs well after dark because they forgot the One Important Thing they need for school the next day. So we sigh and then we drive to the store for that One Important Thing in our pajamas, cursing that child under our breath while they feign surprise at our disgust.
But never in the history of the internet have we been able to capture the one important thing in picture form like writer Rachel Pavlik just did.
Until now.
Pavlik, who writes at RachRiot, has done just that after her daughter asked (begged) her to find some posterboard for a project she needed — you guessed it — the next day. She decided to write about the experience on her Facebook page and we are oh so glad she did.
“PARENTING IN A NUTSHELL,” she writes.” Mom I need a posterboard. What? I need a posterboard! For tomorrow! Well it’s 9 PM! When in the hell were you planning on telling me?!”
Like I said – we’ve all been there. My son came to me two days after starting middle school in a panic because he lost his math folder. The one we bought the week before that he swears he never actually took out of his locker. He lost a bright red folder that had “MATH” carefully written in permanent marker in a two by six tin can that had a lock on it.
She goes on to recount the searching and sobbing that happened when they couldn’t locate said posterboard in their house.
“I go to CVS. No white posterboard,” Pavlik continues. “Go to 2nd store. Buy the white poster board. Here’s your white poster board.”
Image via Rachael Pavlik
Cue the adoration from her daughter for finding the One Important Thing. Kisses, hugs, proclamations of love. They finally go to bed and in the morning she reminds her daughter, repeatedly, about the posterboard. Because that’s what moms do. That’s what our lives have become – making dinner no one eats and reminding our kids about posterboards.
Image via Rachael Pavlik
“Don’t forget your white poster board. Here’s your poster board. Roll it up with this rubber band. Be careful with the poster board,” mom says.
Daughter heads out for the bus stop with the One Important Thing, and Pavlik thinks to herself “I’m so glad she got her poster board. Whew. Crisis averted. I’m winning at this mom thing. Yay me. Hero. I’m the best.” As she should.
But then mom decides to ruin it by going on a walk. “I’m walking,” she writes. And when she turns the corner where the bus stop is and all the neighborhood kids once were, she sees it. The One Important Thing sitting there.
Image via RachRiot
“Bus came. Kids are gone,” she writes. “Everyone gone. Except this. HER G@#%!?#% POSTER BOARD.”
Pavlik tells Scary Mommy that when she saw the poster board just sitting on the sidewalk she was stunned. “I just stared at it for a few seconds. And then I had to laugh. What can you do?”
We can tell you what she didn’t do — take that posterboard to school for her daughter’s art project.
Solidarity, moms.
