💬 My friend's baby starts school in June and I swear I just held him

Arif called last week and said Zayan got a seat in nursery. I said, who is Zayan? Then I remembered. Zayan is the baby. The tiny one I held in a hospital corridor in 2021. He was so light I was scared to move my arms. Arif had to tell me to relax. That baby is 4 now. He has opinions about cartoons and he owns a school bag. I went over on Saturday to see him. He opened the door before his father could. He looked at me for a full 5 seconds and said, are you the uncle who snores? I stayed one night after the naming ceremony once, years back, and that's apparently my legacy. Arif was laughing so hard he had to sit down on the shoe rack. Zayan showed me his bag. It has a dinosaur on it and the zip is stuck. He made me fix it. Then he checked my work and told me to do it again. I don't know when 4 year olds got this strict. Nobody warned me about that part of getting older. Arif's wife made me stay for lunch. The rice was good and the company was loud, mostly Zayan explaining his drawings to me. The school wants all the kids to carry their own water bottle from June. Arif has already bought 3 bottles, in case Zayan loses the first 2. I held a baby once and now I'm somehow buying a pencil box as a gift. He keeps asking when the uncle who snores is coming back. I told him next month, and he made me promise it twice.

School start is harder on the parents than on the kids.

4 is the age when they start judging you. A friend's boy asked me why I still wear the same watch. I said it was a gift. He said, from who, a dinosaur? I had no comeback ready. The 3 water bottles made me laugh, Arif sounds like my brother in law at the first school morning. He bought 4 pencil boxes and sharpened every single pencil himself before the night was over.

The uncle who snores line is brutal. Kids keep records of everything you thought they'd forget. My cousin's daughter was a newborn when I moved cities, and last month she corrected my spelling. She's 11. I stood there holding a pen and had nothing to say back to her. Zayan sounds like he'll be running a company by 12, so keep your bags packed.