The Good Mother Rulebook Nobody Published but Everyone Follows

So to set the scene for this episode, I wanna go back to a day when my son, Tucker, was four.

And he was enrolled in a little preschool that my friend Anna, who was my, like, mother mentor, had told me about when my oldest daughter was starting preschool.

Adorable little, you know, church-based preschool.

And Tucker was in the four-year-old class, um, which means my oldest was already in school, and I had a one-year-old at home.

And at that point in my life, I want you to know, I was a very organized mother, right? I had systems.

I tracked things.

I had a calendar that I checked often.

Um, I was not, generally speaking, somebody who, like, didn't have my stuff together, right? So picture day, no problem.

I had picked out the shirt he was gonna wear weeks in advance.

Okay, truth be told, I probably bought a new shirt for him to wear, uh, for picture day.

I had probably scheduled a haircut around this photo op, and I, you know, I was s- I knew exactly what was gonna happen on picture day.

It was, like, a moment in this little guy's life.

But then life was life-ing and, you know, again, I have this older child, I have this little tiny one at home, and when picture day arrived, I sent Tucker off to school as usual, except I had completely forgotten about it.

So I get to work, and I guess he's wearing whatever shirt I pulled out of the drawer that morning, which was not the one I had planned.

He also did not have an order form with him, like the envelope that they give you.

He, um, he didn't have any money with him to pay for picture day.

This is all...

By the way, this is before this is, like, a digital process.

So I think this has changed a lot in the years, uh, since this, this story happened.

But I had no idea.

I mean, I just was oblivious to the fact that it was picture day, so I go on about my day, and I'm in a meeting, and my phone rings.

And it's the school office from the preschool.

And of course, if you've ever gotten this call, like, your fir- your heart drops because something has happened.

And so appropriately, they reassure me, like, immediately, Tucker's fine.

They just need to know, like, did I want to have his picture taken.