thebeckybug

It’s rare that there’s still light outside after dinner. I ask the kids if they would like to go outside and play before we have dessert. M (4 yrs) replies “But it will be cold! Without any pants!” He looks down and has only superhero undies on. I ask him where his pants went, and he says he forgot. I ask where he put them, and he says he forgot. I ask where he wore them last, he says he forgot. I tell him if he wants to go outside with us, he’d better find some pants to put on.

He searches around the house frantically. First he looks under the couch. Then searches behind the couch. Lifting up the top to the toy box, he finds nothing. The Lego bin people are not holding his pants hostage, either. Then he looks in the kitchen cabinets. He proceeds to the trash can. He tearfully exclaims to me “THEY MUST HAVE DISAPPEARED!”

I walk to the bathroom as he continues scouring the most unlikely places in the house. Like the dishwasher. Of course I find his pants lying on the bathroom floor. After all, he had spent half of his dinnertime in the bathroom, reciting the Iliad and the Odyssey. I call to him that I have found his pants. He rushes in and relieved, says “Oh there they are!”

Halfheartedly, I tell him that he needs to remember some things, like where he put his clothing and his toys, if he wants to have them later. I tell him that I’m worried that earlier he couldn’t remember why he was in time-away at school (for the 3rd time this week.) I suggest he use his Odyssey-reciting brain to remember other important things. I know this advice will just ricochet off his hurricane-child-like-mind.

As he puts his pants on, he looks up at me and offers “Oh I know! Maybe the reason I forget things so much is because from when a black cat crossed my path.”