I Fell Asleep In Carline :: Confessions Of An Exhausted Mother

No one said being a mom was easy.

I work full time, and I had just come off of a 50+ hour work week. Naturally my day off was spent doing mom stuff and not resting. I’m 3 kids deep and have adjusted to an insane amount of caffeine and chucking up the idea of sleeping and napping to a distant dream. The day started off seemingly perfect. The morning air was light and breezy. After I dropped my daughters off at school, I decided to take my 11-month-old on a walk. We hit the block a few times until the sun came out and washed away the idea of a nice fall day. The stroll did, however, put the baby right to sleep. I put him down and quickly started attacking a week’s worth of laundry. After the baby woke up from his nap, it was already time pick up one of my daughters from school. Her 10th birthday recently passed, so I checked her out mid-day for a quick wellness visit. Thankfully, she aced her bill of health and we left early enough to make it home before my youngest daughter got out of school.

Here’s where I started to make all the wrong moves.

Originally, my first instinct was to head home and relax before going sit in carline to wait for dismissal. My daughter convinced me otherwise. The baby had fallen asleep, so I stopped at the house to grab a quick snack to hold me over until dinner. Like a broke starved college student, I snatched a bag of Ramen, threw it in the car, and headed over to school. I pulled up 30-minutes early with enough time to secure a great spot in the line. I sat proudly as the first car at one of the 3-way stops. I could picture how excited my little girl would be seeing me pull up earlier than normal. My 10-year-old crawled to the passenger seat to keep me company and chatted with me while I shoved the entire bag of dry ramen in my mouth. And then I made 5 life-altering decisions:

1. The Ramen noodles I had just engulfed had now absorbed all the caffeine my body had survived on that day.
2. My daughter asked if she could play a game on my phone. I instantly handed it over.
3. I lowered the radio to a soothing hum while I was previously talking to my child.
4. I parked perfectly in the direction of the sun warming my face while the cool AC was chilling my body.
5. I asked my 10-year-old daughter to watch the carline while I closed my eyes.

And there you have it …. I fell asleep!

I awoke to a fellow mom banging on my window. In a confused state, I rolled my window down thinking she was trying to talk to me. NO! She was WAKING ME UP! I immediately turned to my child who looked just as startled as I was. She clearly was so in tune to the phone that she didn’t bother to look up to notice the carline rolling by. When I finally got to the front of school, I realized a van that was 10 cars behind me was now 3 cars ahead of me. I immediately grasped how many parents actually drove by my window to witness my opened mouthed, mid-afternoon siesta.

Needless to say, my child is grounded.

She’s currently punished from all electronics, and I waited an entire week before I even attempted to get in that car line again – before or after school. She has apologized profusely and cleaned my house multiple times. It’s almost been long enough that I find it slightly amusing. However, lesson learned, never trust your 10-year-old with an important task while a phone is in their possession. They will let you down.

It takes a village y’all, and we all fall short sometimes and someplace. Mine happened to be in the school’s carpool line at 2:50pm. To the parents who probably blew their horns, or drove by confused and amused, I’m sorry for holding up the carline. I was that mom that day. To the mom, you know who you are, who ran across the street when she noticed me sleeping the day away, knocked on my window, and brought me back to life … THANK YOU! You saved the day! To all those moms who stop to help a fellow mom, encourage another mom, and support those moms around you, thank you. We’re all in this together. So those who truly go out their way to help someone out, you’re the real MVP.