Today, I was driving my daughter to a place where we could eat dinner while her brother was on a field trip. I was on a call with my dad, she was sleeping in her seat, and we were tooling along the highway through Denver Tech Center. Suddenly, as we passed IKEA (which you can probably spot from Google Earth), her little voice pipes up in the back: “Mom, can we stop by IKEA and get my reading light?”
She had been promised a reading light, just like her brother’s (also acquired at IKEA), for several weeks since she has been able to read consistently. We were in the right place, had enough time, and thus our path was set.
Later, on the way out of IKEA, she told me, “Mom, you’re the best mom ever.” In my usual fashion, I jokingly agreed but then qualified that I’m just a regular person who tries my best, messing up all along the way. Which is when she dropped this gem:
“Mom, I don’t think you ever mess up.”
When I was done chuckling at the hilarity of her statement, I assured her that, while her sentiment was entirely appreciated, I would let her know the very next time I made a mistake. Needless to say, the occasion to do just that arose less than an hour later.
I love that my child can reach levels of satisfaction and happiness to the point where she believes I can do no wrong. But I don’t love it so much that I forget how crucial it is to teach her that to err is so human. If I can teach her and my other child how to handle messing up with grace, I’ll call that really, really good… maybe even worthy of the “best mom ever” badge.