She Called Me the "S-Word." If She Only Knew.

She saw the whole thing.

“So, first you dropped off brownies in your son’s classroom,” my friend Joan said when I ran into her in the school hallway on Friday.

“Then you stopped to coach one of your soccer players in the hallway,” she observed. “And now you’re going to a presentation on the school’s new spelling program.”

Worst of all, she called me the s-word: “Super Mom.”

I know what it looked like. I’d actually made brownies from scratch for my son’s birthday celebration in school, but a real Super Mom would have made sugar-free carrot cake. Yes, I’d mentioned to one of the kids on the soccer team that I coach how well he’d played the previous weekend, but I am just an assistant coach. The head coach has way more responsibilities and clout. And besides, Joan was going to the same meeting.

But in my defense, a real Super Mom wouldn’t have decided to bring in napkins to go with the brownies, only to find these among her collection:

Though it was, indeed, snowing here on Friday, it was only October 16th, so I decided these weren’t appropriate. Plus, I didn’t have enough for the whole class anyhow.

Same goes for the summertime-themed napkins.

Perhaps the napkins with gentlemen imbibing wine doesn’t belong in the 5th grade?

While “High maintenance doesn’t even begin to cover it” might amuse the teacher, who no doubt has her share of difficult parents, I nixed the idea.

This one even has a mild curse word in it that the M.P.A.A. would flag while rating movies aimed at children.

This one, a gift from a friend, seemed only appropriate if, say, we were to invite clergy over for the Giants game. And yet, we never watch football.

In the end, I threw some plain white napkins in a bag and handed them to the teacher shortly before I ran into Joan. When she accused me of being a Super Mom, I started to protest, but she cut me off.

“It takes the spotlight off the rest of us,” Joan said. I imagined her own napkin collection, and I shut my mouth.

Maybe we all have a little Super Mom in us now and then, even if the rest of the time, we can barely keep it together…which gives me a great idea for Halloween:

Brownies not included.