There’s a boy in my house who requires constant, relentless reminders, even though he’s ten. I’m well aware that things could change as time does its maturation work, but I suspect he may always have a tendency toward forgetfulness. That’s a prediction based primarily on one fact: he’s very much like his daddy.
Sometimes, when he’s talking, he will forget what he’s saying in the middle of a sentence, and, rather than try to figure out where he was going, he will contentedly leave it hanging unresolved for everyone else. We’re either falling asleep or riveted, and both end in jarring realizations: one that he’s finally finished (or is he?) and the other that we may never know what it was he meant to say. If we like neat and tidy endings, this will drive us crazy for at least an hour. Not that I know.
The other day this son came downstairs and said in a voice that could only be described as urgent with a little bit of panic on the side: “I really need you to sign my permission slip.”
“What permission slip?” I said.
“The one I brought home.”
“Where is it?”
He looked at me like I had tentacles growing out of my face. “I put it on the counter,” he said.
I looked at the counter, where, after a week of not sorting through papers brought home from school, had a Leaning Tower of Papers (there are a lot of them around our house).
“You’ll have to find it for me,” I said. “I don’t have time to do it.” (I had a squirming baby on my hip who was begging for food.)
It would have been easier if I’d just done it myself, because by the time he was finished looking for this permission slip, there was no tower in sight. There was only a paper counter. As in, a counter made of paper
I signed the permission slip, handed it to my son, and kissed him on the mouth, even though he now prefers the cheek. Half an hour later, I found that same permission slip on the table, along with his homework. I raced the permission slip up to the school but left the homework where it was. I’m willing to let him face the natural consequences of getting a fifty on his homework if he forgets it but not the natural consequences of missing a field trip because he left his permission slip at home.
I hardly ever see this kid’s school work, because he typically forgets it at school. He is the four-year recipient of the Grossest Lunch Box Ever, or he would be if such an award existed, because he forgets to bring it home most frequently and perpetually. He’s the kid with the most pairs of shoes out in the van because he forgets he was wearing any once we’re home from wherever we went.
He’s also the kid who most consistently leaves things out and, hence, misplaces them. He will peel off his skinny jeans because he doesn’t like how tight they are and I made him wear them for family pictures, and then, when it’s time for said family pictures, he won’t be able to find them. He will blame his brothers for stealing all his LEGO mini figures and then find them in a box in his room, where he put them before he left for school today so his brothers wouldn’t mess with them. He will misplace autobiographical journals and find them buried under a carpet of books in the library (I can’t be held responsible for reading misplaced journals. Just saying.).
He is the kid who brings home the most notes about missing homework, has the largest fine at the library, and needs the most plentiful number of socks. His organizational skills (or lack thereof) have cost us quite a bit of money and time over the years.
I think I might just have to get used to that.
He’s ten now. The other night we went to church, and he had to bring all his new LEGO mini figures inside with him, crammed into his pockets. We were at the church a little longer than anticipated, and because his mom gets a little anal about the proper amount of sleep, we were rushing to get out of the parking lot.
We were almost to the highway that takes us home when our son said, “Oh no!” in that panicked voice he reserves for Things That Are Lost Forever. I knew what he was going to say before he said it. “My mini figure!”
“We’ll be back on Sunday,” Husband said. “You can get it then.”
We crossed our fingers for a docile agreement.
But this boy happens to be our strong-willed boy, too, so what we got was the complete opposite: crying and raging and calling us the Worst Parents Ever for about fifteen miles down the road, and then, for the rest of the trip home, a series of blaming exercises, during which he invented elaborate stories about which brother had been responsible for the disappearance of this mini figure.
Half an hour later, we were home. He got out of the car and stuck his hand in his pocket—the why doesn’t matter; it’s the what that counts.
What did he find?
The missing mini figure. It had been there, in his pocket, all along.
He smiled sheepishly, apologized to everyone he’d blamed (which was everyone in the car), and said, with a nervous laugh, “Maybe I should check my pockets better next time.”
You think?
This is an excerpt from Hills I’ll Probably Lie Down On, the fourth book of humor essays in the Crash Test Parents series.
