And the Award Goes To.....

for Worst Mother of the Year....yours truly!!! I've pretty much had this award in the bag since motherhood began for me but this week I sealed the deal. Rewind to Monday night. I'd been sick all weekend and really felt like death by the time I got home from work on Monday night. I dread Monday nights anyway because it's my chauffeur mom night. Here's how a typical Monday goes 'round here: homework, quick dinner, chores, drive Dakota to piano lessons, sit in driveway of piano lessons because it's 20 minutes from home, after she's done with piano drive the boys to wrestling practice at the school, go home try to be productive for the hour and a half they are at practice but with travel time it's more like an hour, go pick them up at the school, come home, fall on to couch exhausted. Sounds thrilling right? GI Joe helps out when he can but often times he has appointments and top secret military stuff (not really). This Monday night however he called to tell me he'd be able to pick up the boys from wrestling so once I got home after dropping them off I could get into my PJ's, drink some cold medicine, and curl up on the couch with a blanket and the DVR remote. I was ecstatic. UNTIL...as we were getting ready to leave for piano lessons Dakota casually mentioned that she had a concert tonight. Ummm...WHAT?!? I hadn't seen any notes about this or mention of it in the newsletter. Upon further investigation I discovered I had written it on the calendar at the beginning of the school year but that was AGES ago...who looks at the calendar every day anyway? Geesh. For a split second I thought about telling her too bad she was just gonna have to miss it because Mama was cashing in a sick day, but then I came to my senses and realized that that would be bad even for the Worst Mother of the Year. So instead we scrambled around trying to prepare for the concert. Dakota informed me that she was supposed to wear dark jeans and a white shirt. Easy enough. Too bad when we showed up all the other kids were suspiciously wearing BLACK dress pants and white shirts so she looked slightly out of place but whatever, she didn't care and it was just further evidence of my pending award (WMofTY). Then she informed me that she had a solo! Seriously, how does a girl who tells us everything we never wanted to know about EVERYTHING from dinosaurs to the book she read to the game she played at recess FORGET to mention that a) she had a concert and b) she had a solo? Grrrrrrr....

I downed some good cold medicine and then set about getting her to piano lessons, the boys to wrestling and then Dakota to her concert. The real award winner of the night though was Dakota. Check out her stellar performance. We'll call this "Expressions by Dakota." Please enjoy the show.

The "Hi Mom, thanks for actually suckin' it up and bringing me to my concert!" expression

"The Yawn" -Between you and me I felt the same way.

"Normally I could care less about my need for a manicure but my nails are so much more intriguing than this boooooring concert"

"Sigh.....I could've written a program better than this in my sleep, they don't even have all the constitutional facts right, darn political propaganda, wait Dad is that you?!?"

"Just shoot me"-again, I could TOTALLY relate

And the Emmy goes to....Dakota for her stirring performance of the State Song and her trend setting hairstyle, aptly named "headband too far back on the head, hair sticking out all over."

And THAT my friends was worth the price of admission.

Worst Mother of the Year Signing Off