Lost & Found

My son is phenomenal in so many ways. His imagination, empathy, his agile sporting abilities – he nonchalantly does 3 backflips finished off with a casual forward somersault dismount from a trampoline (or my bed) when he thinks no one is looking. But he’s also phenomenally talented at forgetting stuff.

This week alone it took him 3 tries to remember to bring home his cricket bag which is bigger than him. It’s bigger than me. It barely fits in my car. And for 3 days in a row, each time he climbed into the car and saw my mom look no 3 – you know, the one where with a half raise of one eyebrow and a half clenched jaw, and without even opening my mouth, I telepathically communicated “Hi my boy, lovely to see you looking all muddy and disheveled, hope you had a great day and all that, but where is your cricket bag?”

“Sorry Mom arg, I forgot it.”

On Friday morning while I was gathering up washing to put a load on, I said to him, “Dude, didn’t you have swimming yesterday? Where’s your swimming stuff?

“Sorry Mom arg, I forgot it.”

Before sports started up again, when they only had a lunch bag to worry about, he’s brought the wrong one home, twice.

“Sorry Mom arg, I forgot to check it was mine.”

His jersey has been lost since the first time he wore it. I didn’t notice because he was wearing his tracksuit jacket every day, until that went missing too. Every day I’d ask if he checked at school? Did he check at aftercare? I asked aftercare? No jersey. No jacket. There was no urgency. It was so hot all the hidden sweets in the car melted to form a yukky gloop. Then it got cold again. Really cold.

The fear of “what kind of parent sends their child to school without something warm in this erratic cold weather” far outranked my natural parenting instinct of “if you don’t look after your stuff, this is what happens, you go to school cold buddy. That’s life. Suck it up. There’s nothing I can do about it now at 6.45am.” But alas, there was something I could do. I whatsapped the super efficient super helpful uniform shop lady and arranged to purchase a new jersey and have it delivered to his classroom. How nice am I?

Then two things happened:

1. A few minutes after I sent payment notification of the new replacement jersey, Aftercare contacted me. They found his jersey. Of course they did. It’s only been lost since July.

2. A few minutes after Aiden’s jersey was delivered, all parents received this communication from the school:

Learners may not receive deliveries during the day for forgotten items such as tracksuits, sports bags, PE kits, lunch boxes, school work etc.

In my defence it did not specify jerseys, but on account of the timing, I suspected it was aimed directly at me.

So now we have the cricket bag, the correct lunch bag, the swimming tog bag, two jerseys, but still no tracksuit jacket. I message the class mom and ask if there a lost and found box? I check with aftercare again. I nag Aiden to please check again in the classroom and ask his teacher and friends. That afternoon he climbs in the car. Cue mom look no 3 again.

His response:

“So Mom, the teacher gave me permission to go to the lost and found. There was a tracksuit top there, but it wasn’t mine. So like legit how’s this? It belongs to an Aiden Kellard. What are the odds? There IS a Kellard surname in my school Mom. It must be his. Our name has an n before the d, this has an r. It can’t be mine.

Cue mom look no 7 – the wtf, are you kidding me?

“Aiden, are you saying that in your school there is an Aiden Kellard? I get that there may be a Kellard family in your school but an Aiden Kellard? And he also lost a tracksuit jacket? Did the top look like it could fit you? Was the name written in black marker? Do you perhaps think that the writing was smudged a bit, or written in haste and so it looks like an r when it should be an n? And I wrote your name at the bottom of the jacket at the back because ..

We both finish the sentence “ .. I/you hate tags or any writing at the collar irritating your/my neck!”

“Mom! You know what, I think maybe that IS my tracksuit jacket!”

FFS. Well at least it’s not lost. It was found.