Today was a bit traumatic for me! You see my beautiful oldest child is in LOVE with Disney’s High School Musical which is on live tour near us right now. The local radio station was giving out six free tickets to tonight’s SOLD OUT show, along with (oh dream of pre-teen dreams!) Back stage passes!

Trying to be the super mom I set out to get those darn tickets!

This began at 6:00am when I found that no, they were not taking the 20th caller, they had trivia questions you had to provide answers for. Hard trivia questions. Well I wrote them down and began Googling answers while I am getting kids ready for school. I thought by the time I left the house I had at least one correct. Listening on the way in I hear a few other people call in, miss here and there and rule out a few options in my mind. No matter, I had some back up ideas. I even call once, get in only to find that three of my answers are wrong. Hey I did have at least one correct, but I needed three more.

Back to re-thinking. I drop dear daughter off and head back home, thinking and listening to the show all the way (mind you taking my child to school is a 2 hour round trip each day). Things start getting close, I hear the last caller has three correct answers of the needed four. Three of mine matched. I call my sister-in-law in Alabama (still driving here) and ask her to Google a better answer for the missed question. She supplies it in seconds. I feel really confident. About this time I make it home with my two little guys, I have been calling all the way but just getting a busy signal at the station.

Once in the house I have the land line in one ear, the cell in the other dialing and re-dialing till AT LAST, I am on hold! I am third I line listening as they hit the air again. I feel confident. The first caller misses one, moves me to second in line. Oh heaven, I have a chance! Caller two supplies all the SAME answers that I have on the paper in my now sweaty palm (and it’s 28 degrees outside).

I wait.

The D.J. tells her, “Aw, you missed the one.....but we are gonna give them to you. You are our winner!”

I hang up in utter defeat. I probably cried for a good two minutes.

I let her down.

Sometimes I feel like I am really running a crazy race for her every day.

I am trying to be the mom she can love, the one who she will be proud of, the one she will not look back on when she is 30 and think, “Man I wish the hell I had never been adopted by HER.”

I wish I did not feel like this. It does not happen a lot, but when it does it kind of sneaks up and bites me in the butt, like this did this morning. I did not expect it. I did not realize I would be so upset about failing to get those tickets until I came to see it was never really about the tickets after all.

I am trying to win love.