Non-Stop Fun

Yesterday morning I attended the first official school function of the year. It was a "coffee chat" with the principal and PTA. How it works is the aforementioned folks "host" a little gathering, complete with coffee and breakfast munchies, for each grades' parents at the school. Yesterday was the one for the first grade parents, which happens to be the entering grade at our school (that's another story about the Kindergarten process, so don't ask).

While my daughter is now a 2nd grader, which I'm still marveling at, I went as a representative of the PTA, since I'm on the Board this year. I really wasn't looking forward to it too much, other than the opportunity to have a cinnamon roll and another cup of coffee. I didn't even go to the one last year for 1st graders, namely because I'm not really one for sitting around and socializing with a group of relative strangers. I prefer to meet people in a smaller setting, like through the classroom activities. So this was literally my first "coffee chat" and I was focusing more on the coffee than the chat.

This event is timed to start after the bell rings for class to start in the morning so it's fairly early. And I figured I was taking my younger two along because it just seemed silly to have my husband stay home an extra hour for something that was so informal.

I had to wrestle my two younger ones into the car, after five rounds of "get dressed" to my four year old, and a couple of rounds of "let's brush your teeth", and a few more of "pick out your shoes". I swear, if I could take my 4 year old out in her pajamas with bed-head hair and her teeth not brushed, not to mention nothing in her belly except chocolate milk (since she has to be practically coerced into eating breakfast), I'd be the one parent that was early for everything. I'd have people marvelling at my ability to get to events and meetings on time with 3 small children.

At least until they got a look at my kids, and then they'd give me the passive aggressive "she likes to pick out her own clothes, huh?" as they roll their eyes behind my back.

So we finally manage to get to the school and do our perfunctory 5 minute wait for a parking space as the lot clears out a little. By the time I roll in there with my son in the stroller and my daughter dragging behind, the PTA President is already giving her spiel. And just then she starts to introduce the officers.

Sweet. Just in time.

I take my kids around to the other side of the room to get some food as she's rolling off the names. By this time my son is already saying "OUT!" to get out of his stroller. Of course we are in a large gymnasium-like auditorium and his voice is way overpowering the lovely lady trying to speak to the crowd. She names all the officers in front of her and says "am I missing anyone?", at which point I raise my hand to be acknowledged. Normally I wouldn't do this, but I just dragged my ass, and two little behinds, here for this very reason so I wasn't going to let the opportunity for due credit pass me by.

"Just us over here, the loud ones," I say to the crowd. I get a few giggles and my due acknowledgement.

After this point my son is not wanting anything to eat, nor is my daughter, so I let them go play in the courtyard outside some glass doors while the Principal of the school starts to talk.

Now all the talk I've heard so far isn't really very critical to me. I've been at the school for a year, so I'm fairly familiar with it's workings. I don't really need to be reminded about the parking lot fiasco, or urged to volunteer for things, since that's why my ass is in the room to begin with. So at this point I already start planning my exit.

Just then my son runs back over to the glass doors and screams "MOM! COME OUTSIDE!!" over and over again while banging on the door. This scene is a bit reminiscent of that scene in The Graduate where Dustin Hoffman is banging on the church windows yelling "Elaine!" for his beloved to stop her wedding. It sort of had the same stunned reaction too.

So I go out and keep my kids company for a bit to keep them quiet. I'm looking in at the Principal talking as if I can hear her, but I really can't hear a thing through the glass. But I figure this way I'm covered if anyone is watching me and I'll at least look the part. I even nod my head a few times just for show.

Meanwhile my kids run around behind me like monkeys at the zoo. It's really what it felt like, even though we were the ones outside and the other side of the glass was the inside. They are running, falling, laughing, and generally having a ton more fun than anyone inside the meeting.

At one point my daughter is standing on a bench and I do the casual "honey, hop down from there, I don't want your brother to get the idea that he can climb all over the benches." So she "hops" down. I realized as I said it that I was probably in trouble.

"Ooooh. I do dat!! I jump!" is what I hear next and he proceeds to get up and jump down off the bench a few times before I can pull him away. Then I try to re-enter the meeting and realize that I'm locked out. I have to quickly divert to a different set of doors through the community center so that we can change scenery and stop jumping off of and climbing over objects.

Now we end up inside at a couple of vending machines. While they are drooling over all the goodies I sneak back inside to listen a little bit more. I hear my kids just outside the room with my son's loud "I WANT DAT!" over and over. So I offer a little what-can-you-do? shrug when some parents look over at me and try to listen intently to the meeting.

Nope, still nothing too critical happening in there. So I grab some more coffee and food for myself and check on the kids who are still excited about the vending machine.

Now I deem it time to go. Enough is enough with the pretending to actually attend a meeting stuff. I go back and grab the stroller from the room just as I hear the principal recommending early bedtimes for grade schoolers.

Check. I have that covered.

And we exit. Whew. 20 minutes of non-stop action and now I can taste freedom.

This is where the "but" comes in. But then, after getting our vending machine goodies, my son runs out to play in the school courtyard on other side of the room we were in. Again, outside some glass doors, so all his craziness can be witnessed by multitudes of other parents. And to top it off these doors are open with people gathered around them since it's where we entered the room.

My son runs around in circles a few times and then leads another woman's cute little innocent and quiet 2 year old all the way across the courtyard, where he climbs up on a concrete wall and begins to walk around with his little buddy right behind him. I hear the mother gasp as she sees what her son has done, and I look up to see my guy leading the pack.

Oops.

Now he's going to be known as "the loud one" and "a bad influence", which we all know adds up to "that kid".

After I run over and rescue this other woman's son, who can't get down on his own, and my son just jumps right off like he actually is the monkey that he seems to be, I figure it's time to get out of there. I get my son to run back over to where the crowd is and then I ask him to leave with me.

At this point I knew he wasn't going to leave peacefully. So I bit the bullet and picked him up to go. Right on cue, as we are passing the open entrance to the room where everyone is still listening to the speakers, he starts his screaming and kicking in my arms.

I offer a little smile to some of the women while I'm doing my wrestling routine, and I say a pleasant "see you next week!" and get the heck out of dodge.

Yup, that's my kid. Non-stop.

Which is great if you're on a cross-country flight. Or at a concert. Or at a number of things that really only last a set amount of hours.

I'm afraid this non-stop doesn't end for another year or two.

And I believe the same can be said for the eye-rolling that I'll be witnessing, which I've somehow managed to avoid for the past 7 years.