About Rebecca Eckler
Since becoming pregnant with her daughter Rowan, Canadian journalist and author Rebecca Eckler has penned three hilarious books, including the best-selling Knocked Up. Catch Rebecca’s weekly unique perspective on motherhood and single parenthood.
Sometimes I feel like my life is about filling out forms. Or, rather, not forgetting to fill out forms.
There are permission forms for school trips, forms for pizza day, forms for dance classes, forms for lunches, forms for upcoming programs. My life is an endless list of filling out forms.
“Welcome to motherhood,” my friend responded, when I moaned about this. I had just filled out an online form for a day camp, or at least tried to. Of course, I was very late filling out this form. All the spots were taken.
Online forms have made my life even more stressful. I need electronic reminders to remind myself to fill out online forms for my daughter.
“On February 18, the online forms will be available,” a woman told me, back in September, about a program I was interested in signing up my daughter for… next September. I put it into my BlackBerry: “Stay by computer. Sign up at 9am.”
It’s definitely better than waiting in a line, but still stressful. You can bet your butt that I was at my computer at 9am on February 18, thanks to my BlackBerry reminder.
But, forgetting to fill out the form for camp, I felt like a royal screw up. I know these forms especially needed to be filled out months in advance.
Still, I had forgotten about it. Summer seemed so far away. How could I think of suntan lotion when I was worried about finding my winter gloves?
Because I was late filling out the form, my daughter is now on a waiting list. All I saw on the screen when I attempted to electronically sign her up was, “Sold out! Sold out! Sold out!”
I felt horrible. There was no one to yell at, except my computer and myself. Which I did. All day long.
To my friend, I threw out the whole “But I can’t keep up, I’m a single mother!’ rant. To which my friend, who has been married for a decade said, “There’s not one mother I know who doesn’t fill out the forms. It’s never the dads who do it.”
How did this come to be? I mean, I know how it came to be – mothers always used to be at home - but why don’t Dads fill out forms too?
Clearly, as a female, I’m not better at it. All the information needed on these forms, Dads should know of the top of their heads, too.
In any case, lesson learned. Next year, I’m going to be right on top of it, at my computer at the crack of dawn, on registration day. Right now, I have to go fill out a lunch form. And find another camp for my daughter and fill out that form. It never ends, does it?