Mack and Aidan pretty much just swim for themselves, trying to beat their own best times from previous meets. It is good exercise during the winter, and good practice for their summer season, when they swim with the neighborhood team and have the chance to place much higher.

Knowing that they probably wouldn’t win any ribbons, I felt guilty dragging them out of their beds at what seemed like the crack of dawn this morning. We’ve been experiencing a cold snap here, and the temperature was in the teens – which makes us all want to put on bathing suits, right?

But we had a committment to be at the pool, so I roused Mack and told him he could just wear his pajamas into the car if he wanted to. Then I tried for a couple of minutes to wake Aidan, who when he finally woke, sat straight up, looked at me and said, “Now all the letters in my brain are gray!”

Which is one of the more interesting things one of my kids has ever said to me; I actually came downstairs and wrote it down right away, so I wouldn’t forget exactly what he said. What letters? Letters like A-B-C, or like letters to Santa? What color were they before I woke you? I wanted to know more, but we were late. (We’re always late.)

So we drove to the meet, and I hustled them off (late) to their coaches and found six inches of free space on one of the packed bleachers. I picked up my library book and sighed, feeling kind of guilty that my guys weren’t snuggled warm in their beds. (Like their Dad. But that’s another blog entry altogether.)

As I sat there, I listened to two Swim Dads having a loud conversation in front of the bleachers. Tall Swim Dad was saying, “Oh, I know. I get that too. Ever since she injured her shoulder, every little time she has pain it’s, ‘My shoulder! I can’t swim!’ And a lot of times it isn’t even her shoulder, it’s [holds up arm to demonstrate] like her trapezoid (sic) or her elbow. And I’m like, ‘You have a choice. You can decide you are injured and freak out about it. Or you can decide you’re going to push through, and just get out there and swim. Either way, I can tell you, you are going to get in that water.’”

I was thinking that this guy was pretty over the top. But Other Swim Dad was nodding and listening. Tall Swim Dad went on for a while, as I half listened, about how they still didn’t know what high school his daughter was going to choose (I thought, “She’s not in high school yet and he talks like this!”), and she wanted to go to this one, but he liked this other one because they had a pool right there on site.

Suddenly I heard a child say, “Daddy…” and I looked up to see a girl approaching Tall Swim Dad. He had a quick conversation with her, reminded her to really “work her dolphin” on her flip turn, and sent her on her way. I kid you not, the girl was 45 inches tall. She could not have been older than six, or maybe a really, really petite seven. She is probably in first or second grade.

My jaw dropped. I wanted to grab her and stick her in one of my kids’ gigantic swim bags (she would have fit) and smuggle her out of there. But she probably would have screamed and, really, who needs the hassle.

I felt way, way less guilty about my parenting choices for the rest of the morning.

Aidan got 23 stitches in the face that day, and that was just one of the three times Mack has put his little brother in the ER with broken bones or cuts.

You’d think Mack would carry around some feelings of guilt about repeatedly brutalizing his younger sibling. But…no.

Today, Mack brought home a project he created in the computer lab. It listed different goods and services, and had descriptive sentences about each one. Under goods, he listed ice cream (“I love ice cream! My favorite flavor is cookie dough.”) and football (“I am a great QB. I want to be a football player when I grow up.”) among others.

Under services, he listed stores (“I like to get footballs and jerseys and toys at stores.”) and the hospital. For the hospital, his descriptive sentence was, “When my brother gets hurt we go to the hospital.”

I should mention that Byron has severe, chronic back problems. He has had two surgeries on his back and neck, but still has to deal with recurring pain in various levels of intensity. He is currently in the throes of a terrible flare up and has hardly been able to walk for the past week. In fact, he even had to cancel a business trip this week – and if he actually cancels a work trip, you know it is serious. But he managed to make it over to the school and through the principal’s welcome.

Once we moved down to Aidan’s classroom, though, I could tell Byron was in a lot of pain. I looked around and realized that we were all, of course, supposed to sit in those tiny little kindergartener chairs the size of toadstools. Some people chose to stand for the hour, instead. But I knew neither option would work for Byron. So I scurried about, looking for a solution. The teacher was nice enough to pull out her desk chair for Byron to use. (You could see some of the other daddies looking on with envy and wondering if they should have pretended to have back issues.) Byron made it through most of the presentation, and we only had to cut out a few minutes early.

Okay, a successful outcome, right? Not so fast. This morning my sister Emily, who teaches at our school, called me. She said, “Did you write a note for Aidan last night?” Huh? It seems that at some point during those first few minutes in the classroom, the teacher said that each parent should write a little note for his or her child and leave it on the desk. I think I was so busy running around looking for a chair that I missed this entirely. And then Byron and I didn’t sit at Aidan’s desk – we sat up by the teacher’s desk so Byron could use her human-sized chair. So I didn’t notice other parents writing these notes, and get clued in. Finally, we left a couple minutes early, so I didn’t notice notes laid out at each place.

Maybe I should have thought, on my own, to leave Aidan a little note. But the dude can’t really read, so it just didn’t occur to me.

Well, I guess everyone in class got to school today, walked to their seats, and found notes from mommy or daddy. Well, 26 kids did. One kid had nothing.

Aidan’s teacher did her best to control the situation. She explained to Aidan that his mommy and daddy didn’t sit at his desk, so maybe the note was somewhere else. And she even walked him down the hall to my sister’s room, to ask her whether she knew anything about the note. My sister scrambled, called me, and wrote a little note to take down to him. She assured me that Aidan seemed to be handling it well.

But I am not handling it well. I am devastated. Man, you think you know the mistakes you are going to make as a parent. You give them the chocolate Pop-Tart for breakfast and you think, “I am a terrible mother.” You make them play in the soccer game when they are complaining that their stomach hurts and you think, “I am a mean mother.” But the ones like this, the mistakes you didn’t see coming, these are the ones that really break your heart.

As I pushed Reid on the swings, I finally had a chance to ask Aidan how kindergarten treated him today. He said he had a great day. I asked what his favorite thing was and he replied that it was when each child took a turn telling the class what they did over the weekend.

Oh, wow. Mentally I flashed over the events of Aidan’s weekend. On Friday he had swim team practice, followed by a movie at home. On Saturday he scored a goal in his soccer game, then spent the night at his Grammy’s house as a special late-birthday celebration. Said celebration involved ice cream from Cold Stone Creamery, pizza, fudgsicles and something called chocolate lava cake. On Sunday our whole family went to a local orchard and picked apples. Then Aidan ran in a cross-country invitational and placed second in his age group.

I wondered which of these special activities he would have chosen to share with his class.

“What did you say on your turn?”

“I said I just sat around and played video games.”

Well, I just heard back from her. Apparently, I am allowed to come in and read a book to Aidan’s class. Which is pretty much Aidan’s personal nightmare. And mine.

I understand that the days of mom coming in with a tray of frosted cupcakes, covered in aluminum foil, are over. But at least when Mack was in kindergarten, we were allowed to bring in “healthy treats” like fruit for a birthday celebration. Peanut allergies, the childhood obesity epidemic, and test pressure have conspired to take even that away. Even from kindergarteners.

I have total sympathy for parents dealing with food allergies. But this loss pains me to my very soul. I really haven’t found anything, in the last 30 years, that brought me as much pure happiness as having my class sing Happy Birthday to me, each of us with a napkin and cupcake on our desk, as my mom stood by and smiled. It was good. It was really good.

So Aidan won’t get to know that feeling. Too bad. I do plan to go in on Friday and eat lunch with him in the school cafeteria. I’ll bring him a special treat, something big and gooey and covered in chocolate. And when his classmates clamor for a bite, I’ll tell them, “Sorry, your teacher says you can’t have any.”

It was fun to have her along as I got totally different comments from strangers. Usually I get variations on “Three boys! Oh my!” Or, “Did you want a girl?/Are you going to try for a girl?” Or the old, “I had all boys, too, dear. You will survive.” (accompanied by gentle patting of my hand).

But with Kiley we got “Oh, all those brothers and just one girl, she has it made.” And, “Just the one girl? She’s a little princess!” And my favorite, “Your children sound WONDERFUL.” I NEVER get that one when I just have the boys with me.

I also got to watch Aidan and Kiley waltz around Target, complete with dips and turns.

Aidan and Mack both love to ride the waves. Aidan, in particular, can’t get enough of the ocean. Several times I saw him wipe out massively and I was sure he’d come up crying. But every time it was a big grin and another few steps out to sea.

At dinner this evening, we talked about the waves and how they are affected by the weather. Aidan opined, “It would be cool if there was a storm tonight, and it came and then it went away. Then tomorrow we would have radical water.”

All I can think is that my southern California upbringing somehow came out through the blood.

I do wonder why Aidan needed 20 (twenty) glue sticks. There will be 25 or 26 kids in his class. What class needs more than 500 glue sticks for the year? What exactly will they be gluing? Is there some sort of black market in glue sticks, and the teachers plan to sell them off to supplement their salaries?

I’m also wondering why Mack needs, specifically, a ruler with three holes, a fabric pencil case with three holes, and paper with three holes…but no binders or folders with three rings.

Mack placed third overall and had a very good run. But Aidan got the laugh of the day.

They had flags, like little landscaping flags, laid out to mark the course in places where it was indistinct. I watched Mack finish, then ran back over and cheered Kiley up through this muddy, slippery hill. Aidan was about 30 seconds behind her. He was coming towards me and running kind of weird and I was thinking, “Is he struggling? Is he okay?” Then I realized he was running around each flag, in a little slalom, like you do with cones at soccer practice. He did it all the way up the hill and down past me, as everyone around me chuckled and I yelled, “Honey, run straight! You can run straight!”