Polly went to her college reunion leaving me with instructions on building a nuclear power plant and/or still having 4 living children at the end of the weekend.  By 7am I was late.  By 8 I had forgotten to feed the dog, forgotten which field we were supposed to be on, and forgotten to clothe one of my children who was standing next to me in his Scooby Doo pajamas.

I might have actually been able to get away with the pajamas were it not for the fact that the family who gave them to us was standing next to me on the soccer field.

“Christian, I see Polly is away.”  Yeah, yeah.

Alright, I would never speak ill of my children.  But in this particular contest, I find myself wanting to run out on the field and bodily carry my child to and fro so that he would be actually temporal with the game.  Instead, I am stuck with an image of Ferdinand the Bull distracted by anything from worms to imaginary fairies perched on his shoulder discussing grass fertilizer.

“Griffin, run!!”  It is dawning on me why my son has not asked me to coach.  Undaunted, I am upbeat.

“Griffin, you played really well!  Did you have fun?”

“Dad, did you know that Stephen Spielberg’s cat has 6 toes?”  He has been off the field for…wait.  I am actually not sure the game is even over.

We are walking back to the car.

“Dad, where’s Christian?”

Well now that’s a phenomenal question.  It’s not quite as bad as it sounds – he was just standing next to me.   Griffin and I stop and look for Scooby Doo.  Low and behold, he is fairly hard to miss.   What I had failed to realize is that he had found an oreo in the car and had eaten that along with a little bag of blueberries I had given him for breakfast.  (I have to get some credit for the fruit.  Overlook the three week old Oreo.  In the car.  Somewhere. where. I. hadn’t. found. it.)

So the thing is now he has a piece of blueberry skin covering one of his little teeth and the Oreo is smeared across his cheeks.   He literally looks like I just dragged him out of some orphanage in the Ukraine.  In his pajamas.  The thing is, he is a little distant from us (20 yards) and it kind of crosses my mind that I can shepherd him back to the car without actually having to claim him as a family member.

“Daddy!!”  No luck.  But he is so cute.  I get everybody in the car.  I am exhausted.  It is 9:23.