TFamily Daze: aking the time to notice… or trying

Make no mistake about it. Sending your child out into the world creates all sorts of surprising parental responsibilities. And I don’t mean things like making sure they’re wearing shoes or teaching them to look both ways before crossing the street or anything like that. Oh no. That’s a given. I mean things that you’ve never even thought about before. Like, for instance, keeping up with all of the paperwork.

You see, as a parent of a school-aged child, you’re in charge of all of the notices they will bring home. And not just one or two mind you. Piles and piles of them filled with all sorts of important times and dates of events, that you’re supposed to keep and refer back to when needed. Take it from me, you won’t.

One of the main problems with notices is that they tend to disappear just when you need them most. And don’t waste your time looking. You’ll never find them. This is because they have, in fact, disappeared into thin air, not to be seen again until the day after whatever-it-was-you-needed to- be-reminded-about happened.

You would think that this problem would be resolved by finding a practical place to keep notices. You would think. But the other tricky thing about notices is that they don’t stay in one place. Oh, they’ll start out innocently enough lying on the kitchen table or on the desk next to the phone, but they’ll somehow end up in mysterious, unthinkable places like behind the sofa cushions or underneath the cat’s water dish. No one knows for certain why this happens. My children claim that the wind blows them there, while others say it’s the result of running a shoddy and haphazard kind of a household. But my theory is that almost instantly after you receive them, notices become a special kind of Glorified Scratch Paper.

Which is exactly what happened to the very, very important notice about the mandatory rehearsals for my daughter’s annual violin recital.

It didn’t stand a chance, you see," I explained to her music teacher. "The very nanosecond the notice came out of the backpack it was put on the Special-Designated-Spot-on-the-Refrigerator-Door. Then it was used for several rounds of tic-tac-toe and as a canvas for a crayon sketch of our house being swallowed by a big, purple sun. After that it disappeared completely, only to mysteriously reappear days later underneath the sofa. But by then a wad of gum was sticking to it and all I could make out was the word "vznxl" and something with the number two."

I could tell by the look on his face that he wasn’t the sort of person who had this kind of trouble at his house.

That said, obviously there are parents out there who can keep track of their notices and fliers. They are the people who are always on time for the kick off, never miss a PTA meeting, and generally just go around making the rest of us look bad.

Now you might think that with a little bit of effort and organization I, too, could shake off my bad reputation and mend my ways. Fat chance.

Once I tried putting every single notice my children brought home into a special red folder. But despite my best efforts, the paperwork refused to remain in its designated spot. Day after day, I’d catch the soccer schedule roaming through the house aimlessly until I eventually cornered it upstairs in my daughter’s bedroom disguised as a camping tarp underneath Malibu Barbie’s tent. Just try explaining that to a disgruntled soccer coach.

Then there was the time I resorted to trying to lure a notice out of hiding by going through each room in the house and saying loudly, "It’s too bad the Cub Scout picnic happened YESTERDAY, AND WE MISSED IT!"

Now I bet you’re thinking that this doesn’t sound like anything a sane and rational person would do. And you’re right.

But we all know there’s nothing sane or rational about keeping track of notices. Or, for that matter, being a parent.

Now if I could just get that in writing.