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.