Raising a Miniature Absent-Minded Professor

It was a rough summer morning recently around the old homestead. First, let me back up. For my oldest son's seventh birthday, our sweet babysitter took it back old school and gave the boy his very own Game Boy handheld video game device. He has been physically attached to it ever since. A few days after his birthday, my scatterbrained son stumbled down the stairs and asked me where his Game Boy was. I had not seen it, so I proceeded to channel my mother circa the mid-1980s, and I advised him to retrace his steps to find it. Oldest responded that he had taken it outside the night before (groan), and set it on the back of his dad's car while he rode his bike (gasp). My head almost popped off my body. - You set your brand new RED Game Boy on your father's RED car? I knew that my husband would have never spotted it when leaving for work that morning, and that Game Boy was in a ditch somewhere between our home and his office, never to be seen again. I was so mad at my son that I had to go to a separate floor from the child; a different room was not far enough. He tearfully claimed that he had brought it back inside, but I knew it was just wishful thinking. This has been a recurring problem with him. Even his school teacher had talked to us about how he is constantly misplacing his belongings at school. I want him to take care of his things and appreciate them. I do not want him to grow up to be one of those teenage punks who loses their iPhone and thinks, - No prob, Mom and Dad will just buy me another one. Au contraire, deluded teenager.

I called my husband at work and might have had a meltdown on the phone (summer break was not going as I had planned). He said that he would go down to the parking lot and check, but the odds were against us. Meanwhile much gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair was occurring in the boy's room. A few minutes later, his dad called back, and you will never believe this. That darn Game Boy had made the drive to his office. It was still sitting on the car!

We decided that we were going to let the kid sweat. I did not inform him that it was found until his dad arrived home from work, and only after he was on the receiving end of a lecture about how if he does not take care of his toys, then we will give them to a child who appreciates them. Time will tell whether it sunk in.

Parenting is hard, Gang.