Mother of the Year in Waiting

In the nine years that I have been a mother, there are many times where I have done something that I thought was worthy of the "Mother of the Year" award. This morning I am pretty sure I solidified my spot and am hoping to never have anything that tops this moment.

Colton had a cross country meet at my old high school. Each week the running order has been 7th/8th grade running first, 5th/6th running second, and 4th grade running last. Usually it is the girls running first too, but for some reason they decided to run the boys first this week. Still, I didn't see any reason to rush to get there at 7:15 when the meet didn't start until 8:00 and Colton most likely wouldn't run until after 9:00. So, we left about 7:30, in no hurry at all, for the race.

At 7:58, I was 1/2 mile away and I got a phone call from one of the other parents asking where I was because they decided to switch the order, the 4th grade boys were running first and she was holding the start for us. I flew into the parking lot and told Colton to jump out and go. And the downhill spiral started. When he got out of the car, his shoe got stuck. He even said, "Mom, my shoe," to which I replied, "Whatever it is, it is fine. Just go!" When he stepped out with his other foot, I assumed (yes ASS U ME) that he was out and started to roll forward. That was when I saw him drop to the ground and heard him scream, "Mom, my foot!" Oh yes, I ran over his ankle with the car. I immediately got out and checked him. By the grace of God it was only black from the tire and it bruised up nicely later, but nothing was broken.

Now, the blame is definitely on me here, but there are three things that could have changed how this went.
#1) Communication between the schools. We are a multiple kid, multiple sport family, so knowing actual times is helpful.
#2) We have three vehicles...my van, James' jeep and the 1996 Corolla. If I had been in the van or the jeep, first of all the tire is at least 18" behind the door as opposed to the 2" for the Corolla and they are both automatic instead of manual so I more than likely would have had it in park instead of neutral.
#3) If I could be less stressed about my kids missing something. He had already missed a meet this year for being sick and so I didn't want him to miss another. BUT, in the grand scheme of things, it would have never mattered five years from now. It's not like he had a college scholarship riding on his run. I need to remember that if I am calm, my entire house is usually calm too.

After all the drama, I parked the car and we walked over to the starting line where ironically they still hadn't started the race yet. Colton decided he wanted to run and even with a sore ankle he got 41st place. Not too shabby. And now, there will be no "jumping" out of the cars for this household anymore. Gotta go wait for my phone call now.