A Moment of Success...and Then it Was Gone

I had it...it was fleeting but last night after Nico came home from practice, I had that moment where I felt like the best mom in the world. First, let me say that he has Charles Lindbergh for his person that he studied. When he told me he needed pilot stuff, I didn't even know what he was talking about. It's probably the ONLY nice thing about junior high. I don't have to know everything so that it all gets done. He is solely responsible. Anyway, it dawned on me after I left my sister's (Thanks, Lee! You look great and loved seeing you and the boys!), that I didn't have to wait and take Nico and three of his friends to the store with me right when we should be eating dinner. Since I already had Gia in the car and could run in and out of stores quickly, I went to a Halloween store and scored the aviation goggles on the first stop. Then on a whim, I went to the Target that was a strip mall down and scored again with the aviation hat (one that someone in this house will end up wearing in the winter). I looked in our closet and sure enough Leo had a black and brown jacket that could pass for an aviation jacket but it wasn't the best. After talking to my best friend, Rochelle, she said she had a brown leather jacket of her husband's. Nico came home from practice, tried it all on and looked perfect! He was so excited and so appreciative that I felt it...what it feels like to be a good mom. Success...as a mom...it's possible! Nico worked on his project all night, painstakingly putting together some video. He was so proud of himself that it looked good and it wasn't even due until next Wednesday. The costume part is due tomorrow. This morning he asked me to send it to his teacher. He was a little nervous because he wasn't sure if doing a video was allowed but this gave him enough time to do something else if the teacher said no (watching how excited Nico was and how great it turned out, it would be a shame). He was feeling so good and asked me to watch it and I got through a third of it and had to stop. The teacher in me was struggling with the mistakes. They weren't so much mistakes as they were typos but I know how hard he worked on it and didn't know if I should say anything. This is the reason I don't like seeing what he does in school. I get caught up in the "right" way to do things and he still gets "A's" so who cares? He asked me all excited if I saw it, saw that it was paused and asked why I wasn't watching the rest of it? He looked more disappointed that I wasn't watching it so I told him I was but paused it for a second to go wake up the twins. I asked him if he knew there were a few mistakes in it and...moment of success was gone. His face fell and he said, "What?! I already edited it twice and I just sent it to my teacher." I told him to tell his teacher that he was sending it to make sure that it was okay to do and that he was still working on it. I felt horrible. No, it's not the worst thing but if you saw his face, you'd understand. He went from feeling so proud to so deflated. I'm not in the camp that kids should never be disappointed. I get it. It's a part of life but maybe I should have just not said anything. Maybe his teacher would have said something and he could have been the bad guy and I could, for just one moment, been the person that says, "It's perfect! You did awesome!" In my defense, I did say it was awesome but I followed up with "...but it needs to be fixed." He'll probably come home forgetting how disappointed he left today but it's one of those things that I'll keep feeling bad about. I know what that is like...to work on something for a long time (cleaning the house, cooking dinner, Christmas shopping) and have someone **** all over it. It doesn't feel good.