Excerpt From That Dance That You Do, By Katherine Heiny

 Time to fill the goodie bags. And you realize that you have either miscounted or forgotten someone, but you have 11 guests coming and only 10 goodie bags. A quick scour of the house reveals that the only other paper bag is one from Victoria's Secret. It is hard to imagine what will be worse - trying to persuade some little boy to accept a pink goodie bag when all the other ones are blue or having to see the parent of the Victoria's Secret bag recipient at school.

You wonder if your children's main memories of you will be your inattention to detail, like last year when your older son had to take cello lessons at school and you neglected to buy the special cello chair and spike holder. So at the spring recital, he had to go on stage with a ceramic bread bin and a bathmat. But just then, your younger son comes in and sees what you were doing. Oh mommy, he breathes, can I have the pretty bag with the stripes, please? Of course you can, you answer, and he runs off happily.

Maybe they are too young to hold a grudge or too immature to realize the ramifications of certain actions, or possibly they have just had limited exposure to mothers who do this kind of thing effortlessly. You've been pretty careful in your friend selection. But whatever the reason, right now, for the moment, for a little while longer, you are still OK.