Mom Quits "Remindering." Family Survives.

Dear Middle Schooler:

No, I can’t remember to remind you to bring your gym clothes to school. The fact that I just remembered about it a good two hours after you left for school is proof that I am not a reliable source of remindering for you anymore. That’s right: I just made up a word…

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remindering (re-mind-er-ing) noun 1. The act of reminding someone, most likely offspring, to bring something, do something, get something or pick up something. verb 2. To make sure the kids don’t leave their iPods in their laundry and/or remember to bring the diorama of the Jefferson Memorial to school by Wednesday.

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It’s not that I don’t love you. I do. But you see, you asked me to remind you to bring your gym clothes to school at the very moment that I was trying to pack up to take you to the soccer game I would be coaching yesterday. Here’s what I did:

1. Text the team’s parents with a remindering for their kids to wear pink socks, a silly reward for good playing that I have decided to pass off as a nod to October’s Breast Cancer Awareness Month.
2. One mom texts back that her son won’t be playing because he is injured.
3. Start rethinking the line-ups.
4. A father e-mails me to pick up his son before the game as he’s stuck at another child’s game. I text him back and call his house (because he didn’t reply to the text) with an “Okay.”
5. Make sure that I have the referee checks, game cards and players’ cards for the game. Without them, we’d have to forfeit the game.
6. Someone texts me that I miss-texted him about the pink socks. He says he’s not who I thought he was. I can’t decide if it’s a father teasing me or if it’s true. Make a mental note to change the number later.
7. Dig up my turf shoes and sunglasses.
8. Pack up water, the game cards, etc. and ice packs for injuries.
9. Hear you ask me to remind you to bring in your gym clothes to school.
10. Tell you that my brain doesn’t have the room and give you a new remindering: You are in middle school now and therefore, you must find a way to remember your own gym clothes on Mondays.
11. Notice that I set up a remindering on my phone that your library books are due on Tuesday.
12. Promise myself that’s the last time I’ll do that.
13. Put everything in the car and go pick up your teammate and head out to the game, only to realize half-way there that I forgot something.

I do hope that you remembered your gym clothes today. I’ll bet that you did, because frankly, you’re pretty organized. Plus, you don’t have nearly as many things to remember as I do, so there must be room in your head. I’m remindering myself to ask you that later.

Love,

Mom