Yesterday I sent Archie to school wearing two right shoes, and Jack to school wearing two left shoes. Today I remembered the twins’ “C” day show-and-tell, but Kit had to remind me that it was also cap day for her and Jack. I managed to pack Kit and Jack’s lunches, and I remembered to stuff a change of clothing into Archie’s backpack, but I left Archie’s shoes on the kitchen island with a pair of socks, clean from the dryer and folded over on each other, stuffed inside one of them.

I didn’t know about Archie’s shoes until we were parked in the carline behind his school. When I pulled his backpack off the passenger-side seat I knew immediately that Archie’s shoes weren’t in the bag. It wasn’t heavy enough. And those shoes weren’t underneath Kit and Jack’s backpacks either, or even next to their lunchboxes.

“Jack, can Archie wear your shoes and socks today?” I asked my youngest son who was all tucked into the middle car seat in the back of my car. Archie and Jack wear the same shoe size, and they have the same shoes, too, so the sharing wasn’t that much of a stretch. Thankfully Jack was in an agreeable mood this morning and smiled, then nodded in agreement.

Between leaving Archie’s school and arriving at Kit and Jack’s school I went back home again where I left the station wagon running in the driveway with the driver’s side door open as I ran upstairs and into Jack’s room where I pulled another pair of shoes out of his closet. He put those shoes on himself, Jack did, while I took the back roads all the way to his and Kit’s school. Somehow the twins still showed up to class on time.