Yippee, oh.

The boys came home with their reports today (which surprised me as the previous headmaster always made sure term was finished before daring to incur some parents’ wrath!) Both have done well this year and their teachers had lots of nice things to say about them. Somewhat ironically my mother also dropped off an old school report of mine today too! Umm, was I really so awful? Or are teachers more wary these days?

R, being a Year Six boy and about to leave Primary, also had the opportunity to teach the Year Two’s today. And as it happened he got to be in charge of his brother! Now, if I’d been asked whether this was a good idea, I most certainly would have screamed ‘NO!’

But it seems I’m a worry-wart who has no faith in her children! R took charge and when some of the boys began playing up, it was P who told them they shouldn’t mess with his brother (and whilst his classmates don’t always like P – they're not foolish enough to ignore his fear ;o))

Driving home they both told me about their day and were full of smiles, P even had some good news – he found his tracksuit bottoms that he lost last September! This may not sound like a big deal, but bearing in mind they cost £22 a pair (that’s about US$40) and you might understand why this would cheer me up.

The amount of school uniform that goes missing is no joke, and I’m meticulous with sewing on those darn fiddly name tags! I find it extraordinary that even when my children come home wearing someone else’s tie/jumper/shirt/etc and return it, we never get our stuff back! On one occasion we lost a bath towel with P’s name embroidered in huge writing across one end – no-one could mistake the fact that it belonged to us – but we’ve never seen it again.

So I asked P where he found them.

“Aaron's got them,” said P.

“Aaron's got them? What do you mean?”

“Well, they’re Aarons now,” P rolled his eyes as if I was being dense!

“Whoa, hang on a sec, P! Is Aaron borrowing them? Or did Aaron have them?”

“Both.”

“What?! Please start from the beginning,” I said hoping to understand my non-too-clear second son!

“Well, I was looking for my bottoms and I thought I found them, so I put them on and Aaron told me they were his.”

“Why did you think they were yours?”

“Because they had my name in!” P said, starting to lose patience with his dim mother.

I frowned and pointed at the bottoms he was wearing, “Do they have your name in?”

“Yes! They both did.”

“So he’s wearing the pair you lost?”

“Yes.”

“Does he know they’re yours?”

“Yes! His mummy told him to find some because he ripped his, so he found mine.”

“From lost property?” I asked with hope.

“No, I told him we checked there and he said he got from the classroom when we first got Mrs T,” but by this time P was bored with the conversation and dropped his cap out of the car window, whereupon I caused a traffic jam as I made my foolish seven year old get out of the car, walk back down the road and retrieve said item!

So the conversation ended there and I’m left confused. Aaron’s mother is one of my friends. Would she really instruct her son to ‘borrow’ someone else’s clothes – for an entire school year? In fact she’s not just a friend, she’s a social worker too!

Good grief, I truly don’t know what to think! This is going to take some careful treading, and I think I shall have to pass the buck to Mrs T to check Aaron’s tracksuit bottoms!

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On another note, for those of you who follow American politics (or simply want the chance to win a spanking new book), Doug is running a Karl Rove resignation pool here

There’s no entry fee and you could win 'Cory Doctorow’s, Someone Comes to Town, Someone Leaves Town', just for entering a date! So hop on over quick-smart (lest Karl beats you to it!) and check out the rules.