I nearly cried over a missing permission slip and then found it under the fruit bowl

Dear Delyara, That’s the thing with family life. Objects can suddenly carry far more feeling than they deserve. The permission slip wasn’t important in the grand scheme of life, but in the moment it represented every fear I have about dropping something that matters to my children because I am trying to hold too many moving pieces at once. By the time I found it, my hands were shaking more than they should have been over paper. My daughter was completely calm. “It’ll be fine, Mum,” she said, which was both comforting and humiliating. I signed it, packed it, and carried on with the evening. But privately I felt the deep tiredness of being the person in a family whose mistakes would become visible so quickly if she let too many things slip at once.