A Moment I wish I Could Have Back

I've had a moment this morning that I'm thankful doesn't happen very often. I can blame it on being tired after working for almost 13 hours yesterday. Although there was nothing I wanted more than to sleep in this morning..it didn't happen. I'm not going to blame it on work and being tired, those aren't excuses for my feelings this morning. So anyways we have a daily routine that we follow faithfully for the most part; I get up, get breakfast ready, get kids up, they eat, I give them their clean clothes to put on after they eat, brush teeth, comb hair and away we go for the day. Now my daughter is really hard to wake up in the mornings, has been since school started in September. This morning was no exception, she was the last one up. She came down, ate and got her lunch ready...she is getting to be independent in most things. She usually gets her own lunch ready, picks her own clothes to wear, combs her own hair. So I tell her to change her clothes when she's done eating and I go get clothes for the boys. I combed the boy's hair, sent them to get their boots and sweater and told my girl to do the same thing. I was pretty much ready to go and went to get my shoes on...there's my girl just sitting there, she's ready but still in the same dirty clothes. Well I tell her to change her clothes because we have to get going. She changes, heads to the car and we start to go...I look at her and she has no socks. I stop the car, yell at her to listen when I tell her to do something, and come and get her a pair of socks. I'm sitting here writing feeling bad because of the look she had on the drive to school and when she got out of the car. Gone was the bright little smile she always seems to have, she didn't even say good-bye and wave as she usually does....she just walked away with her head down. I drove away to take the boys to daycare...had a flashback to my childhood...remembered all the times I would leave for school looking just the way my daughter did today, for being yelled at for something by my mom or step-dad. I always said I would never treat my kids the way I was treated as a kid...today I failed. I've had a moment in time I wish I could take back. I've only been a single parent for 18 months...I give a GREAT GREAT BIG hand to all the single parents out there who've done it longer than that!!! Life as a sinlge parent isn't easy...