My son is many things. He is smart, he is silly, he is stubborn, he is snuggly (even though he is all bones and corners). Mostly, though, my son is a LOSER OF THINGS. We spend a lot of time on quests, searching. I buy stock in yarmulkas, because most days I send him off to school wearing one, and most days he comes home from school not wearing one. He can never find his shoes. He can never find his hoodie. He only sometimes decides to bring his homework home. He has lost several library books.

This weekend we hit the trifecta. The day when enough stuff was missing that I was in Ali-loses-her-shit territory. Thing the first: I found a note in Josh’s bag that said, “Joshua is missing his assignment book; again. Please try to help him locate it.” Thing the second: when we were about to go work on Josh’s Cherokee house-building project, when I asked him to get the bowl and the coffee filter (this was, in fact, the SECOND set of materials. He lost the first set. OF COURSE), he had only come home with the filter…no bowl in sight. And then came the hat, which, of course, is thing the third.

My son is a RockHound. As a canuck and hockey-player-from-birth, he is fairly new to baseball. This is his first year playing and he’s playing alongside boys who have been playing since before they could talk. They have dads who play, older brothers who play, they were born to play. He was somewhat reluctant at first, but here’s the thing. Some kids are better hitters than others, some kids are better runners, some kids are better catchers and some kids are better fielders. But they barely even notice. The kids go out there and they cheer each other on. They celebrate hits and runs, and they encourage players when they get out.

But here’s the thing with Josh. As soon as he stops worrying about not playing well, and loosens up a little, he plays great. This weekend he played a big game. He batted three times, got three big hits into right field that landed him on base all three times.  He scored the tying run in the last inning to bring us back to win the RockHounds FIRST game this season. Watching Josh play, for me, is a little like watching the Packers; it’s almost too nervewracking to watch, I want it so bad. And it’s not even that I care if he catches every ball or gets monster hits…I just really want him to love the game.

The girls are less enthused. Clearly there are more important things at baseball than baseball.

But, our celebration was cut short when my son, of course, lost his precious RockHound hat…the one that sports MARTELL across the back of it, the one he is so proud to wear.

So, yesterday, we turned the house upside down, looking for those three very important things. There were some screams, there were some tears, there were some screens taken away, there was nothing found. Mostly, though, there was me, desperate, all set to scour Dr. Google to find out what to do about my son.  We had a discussion about responsibility. We had a discussion – again – about putting his stuff in his room. We had a discussion about, maybe, just maybe, deciding to actually CLOSE his backpack is probably a good idea.

This morning, while Josh was frantically searching for his shoes and hoodie in the clean laundry hamper…we found something.

“See, Mommy, it was YOUR fault. I don’t even DO laundry.”