Due Tomorrow

It’s time for bed, and your child asks if you have a poster board for a school project.  To which you reply, “I’ll pick up one tomorrow”.  And then your child gives you the all too familiar, “But it’s due tomorrow.”

I have seven children so we have experienced “due tomorrow” a lot.  But no matter how inconvenient it is, or how frustrating it can be, those nights have always turned out to be some of the best memories that we still laugh about today.

We’ve had to run to the library, in our pajamas, with hopes of gathering enough information for a report… due tomorrow.  We’ve had the whole family up half the night in the backyard trying to make a catapult… due tomorrow.  We have had a son write an entire semester worth of poems in one night!  We have even done a complete science fair project the night before.  After trying to make my daughter understand that you can not just whip together a science fair project… after dinner… for the next morning…she won!  No lesson about the consequences of procrastination there.

I have often contemplated that I could make a fortune carrying project, report, and science fair supplies in my home.  Just stop on buy and pick up that poster board, glue stick, or report cover.  Come on buy to print those color pictures!  Pick up two live plants which have been growing with rock music playing in the background, and two plants that have been growing with classical music playing.  Sold complete with a science fair board!  Open 24 hours!  I would clean up!

My youngest and I had a “due tomorrow” moment last night.  A project that she had known about for the past two weeks had to be completed… tonight.  It was a sort of getting to know you theme.  She had to find a way to display items that would describe her values, goals, wants, and needs.  It included a one page paper explaining each of the items.  In an effort to be creative (and not have to run to the store) I had a bag from our favorite chocolate store, which does describe her wants.  She began pinning and taping things that were all about her.  She had her name tag from Baskin Robbins showing where she worked.  A playbill to show how she loved theatre.  Ticket stubs from her favorite concerts.

I finished cleaning the kitchen and was off to bed.  I had just laid down when she asked me to please come proof read her paper.  Exhausted and blurry eyed I came out to the computer and started reading.  My name is… I work at Baskin Robbins… I value my religion… my goals include going to college… I want to pursue theatre… And… I need my Mom.  Tears came to my eyes as I saw taped to the middle of the bag was a picture of me.  I need my Mom.

You raise your kids to be able to be independent and take care of themselves one day, but if you’re a Mom, there is nothing sweeter than…  I need my Mom. 

On my list of needs?  I need her too.

Once again, our night of panic, because it is due tomorrow, turns out to be somuchmore than a project.