The morning started off fantabulously! Each of my babies woke themselves, before I had to head in with buckets of cold water to do the waking for them.
They got themselves all dressed, in their new digs, specially purchased for the first day of school.
They went off in their different directions with no mishaps.
TB to the bus stop to enter the world of Jr. High and “Sevies”.
BTP to her bus stop of high schoolers who know the ropes.
Bean - I drove to school so that I could walk her to her new 3rd grade classroom.
I was patting myself on the back for a wonderfully smooth morning for the first day back at school.
A little too soon. See, I began patting myself before I even got Bean safely tucked away into her classroom. My first mistake, and the reason the ‘back-to-school’ gods frowned heavily upon my head.
The first round of troubles began, sort of, waiting to get Bean to class. This year, someone had the brilliant idea that this year, they were going to prove that the schools were doing their “due diligence” by corralling the parents, forcing all, oh, 200 of us, to file through the office, single file, sign in, and get a “Visitors” sticker before we could just drop our children off at their classrooms, shake their teacher’s hand, and run like chickens with our heads cut off to work. This caused quite a stir. Mainly for those who don’t speak any English, and therefore just stood there confused and clogging all entrances into the school. I stood out in the sun, sweating my fat little ass off, for 45 minutes before I could even see the front door. That doesn’t include the standing in cattle stalls (the front hallway of the school) as we were herded through the office to sign in. That took about another 15 minutes. ugh. Ok. No big deal.
Except, halfway through the line to no-mans land of teachers, students, and confused parents of grade schoolers, my cell phone rings.....it’s BTP. Under my breath I mutter “what the hell"… I knew it wasn’t good.
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The morning started off fantabulously! Each of my babies woke themselves, before I had to head in with buckets of cold water to do the waking for them.
They got themselves all dressed, in their new digs, specially purchased for the first day of school.
They went off in their different directions with no mishaps.
TB to the bus stop to enter the world of Jr. High and “Sevies”.
BTP to her bus stop of high schoolers who know the ropes.
Bean - I drove to school so that I could walk her to her new 3rd grade classroom.
I was patting myself on the back for a wonderfully smooth morning for the first day back at school.
A little too soon. See, I began patting myself before I even got Bean safely tucked away into her classroom. My first mistake, and the reason the ‘back-to-school’ gods frowned heavily upon my head.
The first round of troubles began, sort of, waiting to get Bean to class. This year, someone had the brilliant idea that this year, they were going to prove that the schools were doing their “due diligence” by corralling the parents, forcing all, oh, 200 of us, to file through the office, single file, sign in, and get a “Visitors” sticker before we could just drop our children off at their classrooms, shake their teacher’s hand, and run like chickens with our heads cut off to work. This caused quite a stir. Mainly for those who don’t speak any English, and therefore just stood there confused and clogging all entrances into the school. I stood out in the sun, sweating my fat little ass off, for 45 minutes before I could even see the front door. That doesn’t include the standing in cattle stalls (the front hallway of the school) as we were herded through the office to sign in. That took about another 15 minutes. ugh. Ok. No big deal.
Except, halfway through the line to no-mans land of teachers, students, and confused parents of grade schoolers, my cell phone rings.....it’s BTP. Under my breath I mutter “what the hell"… I knew it wasn’t good.
BTP: “Mom. You have to come and get me. They won’t let me in school.”
Me: “Scuse me? Um, why??”
BTP: “Because I need a shot.”
Me: “Srsly? Like, they told you that you aren’t allowed in your class?”
BTP: “Yes, seriously. They won’t let me in! You have to come and get me now!”
Now. My child takes after her mother in a lot of areas, having some social issues being one of them. At this point, my heart begins pounding for her, knowing that this is probably mortifying her right now and she could very well have an anxiety attack and pass out on the floors of the front office to her school. Bean is anxious, thinking that in light of the new developements, I may cut and run, leaving her to navigate the unfamiliar halls of the 3rd grade all by her lonesome.
I say a quick prayer to God that I do NOT hear from TB for any reason. I begin to calm them all down.
Me to Bean: “Don’t worry, we will get you to class baby. I won’t leave ‘till you are snug, k?”
Me to BTP: “I will be there as soon as I get Bean settled in. Stay put in the office, I will msg you when I am almost there.”
Me to Me: “Breathe mom. It’s all good. An adventure, right? Riiiiiiight.”
At which point, I put a call into work to let everyone know that I am going to be “a little late” and will be there “as soon as possible”. Ok. Check.
I finally get through the herd of people at the grade school, get Bean delivered safe and sound with mommy kisses for good measure, to her teacher, and nearly run out the front door. I jump in the car and head directly to the high school. Sure enough, I find BTP sitting uncomfortably in the front office waiting for me to fetch her and make things right. That’s exactly what we set out to do. Only, I am a fool. I started out thinking that this little adventure would take about an hour or so and we both would be happily on our ways.
Oh. Did I think wrong. That, you know, thinking, was probably my first mistake.
The school sent us to a free clinic so that she could get her shot taken care of today and get back on track. Cool, right? Yeah. Not so much. The line was huge, the people a gnarled mass of stink, sweat, and more non-english speakers who couldn’t even fill out a simple form or follow simple directions printed out in ALL languages right before their faces. It was a nightmare, and one that lasted a total of 3 hours. OMG.
BTP and I could have ended up in bad moods. We could have used our time to bitch and complain, whine and cry, all through sweat and turmoil. However, we did not. We giggled. We chose to laugh about the whole thing and just get through it best we could, as we had no choice. Might as well make the best of it all. We ended up having a good time together. We also decided that, since BTP missed her lunch hour at school, her and I were going to stop, take a few breaths, and enjoy what God put before us. Time to have lunch together, just her and I.
That is exactly what we did. We stopped at Souper Salad and ate lunch together before I took her back to school and finally headed into work. It was lovely! I rarely get to spend time with my BTP like that and I absorbed every minute with her. Eventually, I got her back to school, she got her schedule and was allowed into class. I got myself safely delivered to work, albeit a lot later than I had ever anticipated, and all was right with the world once again.
I am glad that things turned out the way that they did. Sometimes, the chaos that life throws at you also delivers priceless moments in time that you may have never had outside of the chaotic events that brought you there. Sometimes, you just gotta go with the flow and take advantage.
Today, that’s exactly what I did.
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