Redemption

You know those moments in motherhood? The ones no one likes to talk about.

The moments when you flop it SO big time that you’re sure you have a neon

“L”

tatooed to your forehead.

Not only is it neon, but it

FLASHES!

LOOSER  MOM LOOSER MOM

Well, I secretly think that EVERY mom has those moments – even if they don’t admit it, at least I HOPE so, because otherwise I am the only mom out there who accidentally sabatoges her daughter to FAIL her Intro to Languages class.

But now I’m getting ahead of myself. So lets back up and examine what made this moment my ultimate LOOSER MOM moment.

Liz had a huge project due today for her Intro to Languages class. We’ve known about it for weeks and weeks and weeks… and I promise I wasn’t procrastinating. I wasn’t procrastinating because it involved making a cake.

Well, I suppose I could have been an over achiever and made it three weeks ago, but then it would have gotten moldy and everyone would have gotten sick from attempting to eat it, and  then this would be a WHOLE different looser mom story.

Anyway, the cake. A Black Forest German Cake. YUMMMMM!!!! The plan was to make it on Sunday (so it would be fresh). Which meant Saturday I was supposed to buy the ingredients.

She reminded me.  “Don’t forget to get the stuff for my cake.”

And I, with my little ‘oh honey, I won’t forget‘ smile, said, “It’s on my list.”

I could blame it on the fact my husband had to work 6 hours, help someone move AND attend a wending with me. I could blame it on the fact that Jacob was sick, I was crazy busy with mothery stuff, I had a wedding to attend, and Liz was off babysitting another family when I got home from said wedding and couldn’t remind me. I could blame it on the fact that after 6 pregnancies my brain was left full of holes –

SWISS CHEESE BRAIN!

(the memory you suddenly loose when prego, never comes back)

Regardless of the excuse, the horrible, numbifying fact of the matter was that

I FORGOT!!!!

It didn’t even enter my head until Liz walked into my room Sunday morning and said, “Oh, Mom, did you get the stuff for my cake?”

And there accompanied by

chirping crickets

was the biggest

LOOSER MOM

moment I have had so far.

I gaped at her like a fish.  “I forgot.”

“Mom! That’s a HUGE part of my grade!”

“I know, we’ll figure something out.”

What to do? I was panicked. Granted we had a day, but it was SUNDAY. After all we had taught our kids about keeping the sabbath day holy and dedicating it to the Lord.  We always made a big point of making sure the car had enough gas to get to anywhere we needed to go, and making sure we had everything we needed for dinner or lunch. And here I was holding my daughters grade in my hands.

I suppose the ox was in the mire. More like I had pushed the ox in the mire. Well, ok, honestly, the way it would have happened was I was supposed to get the ox out of the mire on Saturday but tripped and fell in myself.

(Hey! I’m not nick- named Goofy for nothing – it would have totally happened had I oxen or mires about)

Anyway, oxen and mires aside, I couldn’t see breaking the Sabbath to go buy the stuff on Sunday. There had to be a way, some way to accomplish it.  I could call people, but Sunday mornings are hectic enough, and I couldn’t get a hold of the one or two people I tried. I finally settled on a solution, provided by my awesome hubby.

Solution?

Wait until midnight when it technically wasn’t Sunday anymore and I could go to the store guilt free and attempt to redeem myself.

The one tricky part?

The cake is frosted with

whipped cream –

I can’t exactly put that on a hot cake.

SO not only did I have to go to the store at midnight, but I had to bake it,  so it could cool completely by morning.

So, in an attempt to seek redemption from my looser mom status, I ran to the store at midnight. By 12:30 A.m. I was home and whipping up a cake. by 1:20 I was pulling the cake out of the oven and putting it on the wire wracks to cool. By 1:30 I was in bed asleep.

5:00 in the morning, Liz tip toed in. “Mom, can you help me finish my cake?”

After my 3 1/2 hour nap I hopped out of bed.  (okay, honestly, I stumbled, staggered, and crawled out of bed) We sliced the cake into layers and slathered each layer with cherry pie filling and whipped cream.

By the time we were done we had a masterpiece of cake, whipped cream and cherries.

And I had a very happy and grateful 12-year-old daughter that was no longer in fear of flunking her class. Cake in hand, she hopped on the bus at 6:45 A.M.  (I did attempt to snooze between when we finished the cake at 6 ish and 7, but that SO didn’t work.  Ever notice how in that one moment when you actually NEED the extra snooze, EVERYONE is suddenly wide awake? Yeah.)

Oh, and not only did I redeem myself on that count, but I was also able to save myself from a second looser mom moment. Emily needed grapes for her class Halloween party today, so I got those while at the store.

So, I am functioning off of 3 1/2 hours of sleep (and a 15 minute cat nap from this afternoon).

Was it worth it?

The whole zombie mom lack of sleep status?

Absolutely. I would rather sacrifice sleep than compromise my beliefs. I would rather show my children that we make sacrifices to keep the commandments, then to do what is easy. I could have gone to the store in the middle of the day, or evening, and I would have been justified. It was an “ox in the mire” situation after all. But when there was an alternative available, I had to take it, no matter how difficult, to teach my kids that if we look hard enough we can find solutions that will allow us to stand firm in our beliefs. We may need to make a few sacrifices, but it can be done.

So, I suppose my looser mom status was redeemed, at least, I hope it was. In fact, I felt like at the end, I came out a

winner!

SO…

take that, swiss cheese brain!

(I’m going to take a nap now…..)

(oh, and Liz just came home and said the cake was AWESOME! YAY!)