The 21st Century SAHM

Fools, we are. Well, at least I am. (The kids are oblivious optimists.)

My daughter’s adorably creative preschool teachers create “activity bags” for kids and parents to check out and take home. Each bag is structured around a central theme, and within it are various activities that touch upon different types of intelligences. There might be a bag based on dinosaurs, which will include books, a craft idea, dinosaur toys, and a game. Or a bag about frogs, complete with a stuffed frog, a wooden frog, and multiple books, both fiction and non-fiction teaching kids about frog life.

Well recently my crazy kids asked to check out an activity bag. Their choice? Penguins.

Sure, I said. Sounds like a great idea. So I signed my name—my whole name, in ink—on the sign up sheet.

And for the next week, the “Penguins” bag was ours.

Contents of “Penguins” bag: 4 books, one penguin puppet, and one penguin game, which included dice and 9 penguin figurines. NINE small penguins—all black and white, all about 2 inches tall. In my house. That don’t belong to us.

A fool I am.

First up was a puppet show, put on by Mommy herself. Peter the Penguin Puppet introduced himself, shared some penguin facts, and then reappeared after each story was read to see what the kids had learned.

Peter the Penguin would ask things like, “Who goes to look for food?” (The mommy penguin) and “Are there penguins who live in warm climates? (Yes)

Peter the Penguin is also stupid. Because never once did he ask the important question: “Which one of you kids already lost a damn penguin figurine?”

The bag had been in our house for 30 minutes. And when the books had been read and we decided to give the game a try, guess how many penguins were left?

8.

Okay, well it is obviously here, in the room, right? I mean, we just freaking got home.

But what about when the 5-year old took a potty break? Did you bring it in the bathroom? I asked. No, Mommy.

Oh and then there was that time the 2-year old went upstairs to get his super hero cape before the puppet show. Is it in your room? No, it wasn’t. We looked. 73 times.

In fact, this is how the last week has gone. It is full-out penguin obsession around here. Is the penguin under the couch? In your backpack? In your dresser? In the fish tank? On the toilet? In the toilet? 

It is nowhere (that we’ve looked anyway). And man have we looked. Since my 5-year old’s favorite pastime is to fill tiny bags with treasures and then put said bags into bigger bags and then put those bags into even bigger bags… I have emptied every tiny bag, every Elsa purse. I have cleaned out the doll’s pack and play and the doll’s cradle. I have looked behind things, under things, in things. I have searched my car—the place where all toys truly go to die. Not there.

Finally, after realizing the penguin is likely gone forever (or will not turn up until we move), I fessed up. I brought the bag back to preschool, one penguin short.

I told my daughter’s teachers the truth: We lost one. We lost one likely within the first 10 minutes of its sad, very short time with us. Because that is what we do. We lose shit. We break shit. We have no business borrowing anything from anyone, and we know it. We just forgot. We forgot who we are for a second, but we remember now.

Thanks, little penguin, for bringing us back to reality. Hope you are happy, nestled snug inside a sock inside a mitten inside a firetruck somewhere in this house. You are probably having a good laugh. Or maybe you are sad and miss your buddies. Well, sorry about that. They went back to the land of safety, where the other bags live. Other bags that won’t be coming here any time soon.