I Threw Away My Kids Math Homework

Yes - you read the title correctly. This is not the dog ate my homework scenario, I actually threw my third grader’s math homework away. To be fair, it was near the trash pile… * Insert all the “I know that’s a terrible excuse” emojis. *

I was made aware of my mishap, my oopsie-daisy if you will, when my son walked into the bedroom where I was folding laundry holding out a piece of paper dripping with smoothie and liquid from a tea bag being thrown on top, announcing that I threw his homework away — again…

Literally, where is the emoji button when you need one? This is where I would stick a monkey with his eyes covered. Because yes, this week I have done this not once, but twice. The good news is the first time I had just taken out the trash and was able to pull the math homework out of the waste bin with no damage done. The second time, however, I was not so lucky. Looking at the paper, I quickly tried to assess how to salvage the situation. But alas, this time there was no saving the destroyed homework.

What did I do you ask? Well, I apologized to my kid, and then I laughed. Because the lesson here was bigger than my mistake. My reaction demonstrated to my kids that sometimes we mess up and that’s okay. I texted my son’s teacher and ratted myself out. She laughed with me and is allowing him to get another homework next class.

We’re big on catch phrases in our house. One I’ve been using a lot lately is “Did you do your best?” or “I did my best.” I like this one because it takes off the pressure we can place on ourself and helps us give ourselves grace. Because we’re human. We’re going to mess up. We’re going to fall short. We’re not always going to be the best at something. But, if you can step back and know you did your best or that you tried your best, guess what? That’s all you can do - YOUR BEST. You couldn’t have done anything differently because you did the best that you could do.

Our family is in a busy season. We are in the process of getting our house ready to sell, while looking for another house in another state. We’re applying to new schools and trying to learn our new town. All while keeping our life here as normal as possible. My husband is traveling on average every other week, bouncing back and forth between life here and life there. So, when he was on a travel week, and I was solo parenting, getting ready for class valentines parties, and prepping for the house keepers to come the next day, I threw away a homework sheet. But I was doing my best. Admittedly, my best wasn’t great in that moment as I should have slowed down and looked closer at what I was discarding. But it happens. Life happens. And we figure out how to find the solution to the problem.

That’s another one of our frequently used phrases. Every problem has a solution. The solution here: laugh at myself, apologize, and contact the teacher. The win here: my kids saw that even mom makes silly mistakes and finds a solution.

Parenting is hard. Life gets hard. We’re all just doing the best we can. And guess what — that’s enough. I hope you find some encouragement in that.

xoxo

brittany