Dear Teacher/ Coach/ Principal/ Work Colleague/ Doctor/ Stylist/ Friend,
I would like to apologize for our tardiness to school/practice/ work/ my appointment/ literally everything.
I don’t want to make excuses, but simply to say that I am sorry that we are always late. I realize that no one likes having their time wasted and I wish I wasn’t the person who can never make it anywhere on schedule. I have the best of intentions, but I also have young children and a brain that only works at 60% of my pre-kid capacity (pretty sure it is from sleep deprivation.) Any one of the following things may have occurred to cause this lapse in punctuality (or possibly all of them):
- Shoes and/or socks. My children, who can hear me open a Twix bar from three rooms away, apparently have selective hearing loss when it comes to the phrase, “Put on your shoes.” I am required to say this at least 12 times before either of them hear me. Once they have heard me, there is a massive argument or meltdown about what type of shoes they want to wear. These, as a rule, are completely contrary to the activity we are attending. For example, rain boots for a soccer game and princess dress up shoes to go to the zoo. I am often also met with “These socks feel funny.” If I rationally ask them to just change socks, the response is, “I don’t want to change, just make these not feel funny!!” If you know how to do this, please, please tell me.
- Eating. My children go from zero to hangry in 2.5 seconds. If I made the colossal blunder of going any distance from my home sans snacks and someone decided they needed to eat NOW, we probably had to pull over. I would have just let them come to whatever function we are late to but I don’t feel right making you deal with my hypoglycemic monsters.
- All the stuff. My kids need many things to get through a typical day. We inevitably forgot a lovey, homework assignment, change of clothes, lunch, and/or one of the children themselves and had to go back to get it.
- Some sort of car incident. While I have never been officially diagnosed with a depth perception problem, my Toyota Highlander is visible proof that I am unable to judge distances. I may have gently backed into a post, bumped another car, or dinged a door. Whatever it was, I have taught my children proper manners. Ask them what happens if you hit a car and they will say in unison, “leave a note!” I carry index cards in the vehicle for this purpose.
- It’s only 15 minutes. I sincerely hold to the belief that I can get between any two destinations in the greater Dallas area in fifteen minutes. That is how much time I give myself to get places. As you have probably noticed, this does not always work out in my favor.
- Poop. We were almost on time but then someone had to poop. Or someone refused to poop when they clearly needed to. Or pooped somewhere that they were not supposed to. Much of my tardiness revolves around some form of poop.
I am truly sorry for the inconvenience. I wish I could say that it won’t happen again but we both know that’s not true.
A thousand apologies,
A Chronically Late Parent
