The Way We Were

For the past two weeks, my children have been starring in an epic saga of forgetfulness; they forgot their homework and the materials they needed for their homework multiple times (resulting in awkward phone-calls to their friends-- there is nothing worse than supervising nine and ten year old boys while they make phone-calls in which they actually have to glean some information from the communication) and then Alex nearly shit his pants when he realized that he forgot his saxophone-- his newly purchased very expensive saxophone-- "on the hill by the school" because he played some football right after school let out, but then his brother rushed him to leave . . . and so, nearly an hour after he left the very expensive saxophone on the hill, we raced back to school-- to find that the saxophone was no longer on the hill where he left it, and so there were even more tears, but he lucked out-- some goodhearted soul brought the instrument into the main office-- and as a result of all this forgetting, Catherine and decided that the two of them couldn't walk home for a week-- and that if either of them forgot their stuff, then they were BOTH losing TV for the night and that I would have to pick them up and check to see that they had everything they needed . . . and while I was annoyed with their irresponsibility, I was exactly the same way when I was a kid, so it was hard to actually be angry with them . . . and they do have to remember a lot of stuff; anyway, I raced out of my school last week so I could get to their school and check on them, and when I found the spot where the fourth graders were let out, I saw Ian and a few other kids engaged in an insane tackling and wrestling melee, with plenty of full speed running into each other and lots of chucking each other to the ground and it surprised me that this was happening on school grounds but they seemed like they knew what they were doing and that this was some sort of daily ritual so I forgot about it (especially since Ian had to return inside the school to find his trombone, which he forgot) and then the next day when I picked them up, my other son-- who is in fifth grade-- was also involved in this melee and I asked him if this happened every day and he said, "No, this never happens . . . but I saw them and joined in" which made me laugh because the whole thing looked so casually violent, like they always did this to let off steam after a school day, but I warned them that when some teacher or aid saw this, they were going to get in trouble and I told them about the very first after-school detention I received, which, coincidentally, was for-- and I quote this-- "play-fighting in the yard" (I'll never forget the description because I had to bring the detention slip home and get it signed) and I'm really hoping they start remembering their school materials because I don't want to see any more of this, as it's too stupidly nostalgic (and my wife doesn't care if I committed these same errors, she thinks we're all idiots).