I should preface that I was anticipating this night for weeks. I love school supplies. I love meeting teachers. I love getting to see where my kids will spend their days. I love seeing old friends. I had this amazing, unrealistic image in my head of us skipping through daisy fields to the school where we yacht-club-style laugh with the teacher over sweet things the kids say. It was going to be a crowning moment for me as a mom. And this embarrassed-to-admit part of me thought everyone would watch us and think, "Now, what a cute little family, that mom has it TOGETHER."
It was seriously a perfect storm. First, it started an hour earlier than last year and ended thirty minutes earlier than that past. We didn't find this out until the event started. So we hustled our behinds so to look presentable (first impressions are everything, right?) We left our extremely messy house (there was still confetti EVERYWHERE from Caity's birthday.) And we had to speed walk as fast as we could to the school with twenty pound back packs in tow. There was whining, there was fighting, there was crying. I don't know how I ended up carrying both backpacks while pushing the stroller, but I did. Matthew and William both desperately needed naps. And food. And baths. That was the main problem here.
By the time we made it to the school. I was sweating all over, and not in the glisten-way, more like the high-school-boys-after-football- practice-way. It didn't look pretty, it didn't smell pretty.
We got our class assignments and neither child was in their friends' classes. That was disappointing. Johnny's friend ran up to talk to him. Johnny looked at him, shrugged, and ran away to do I don't know what. I couldn't go retrieve him and teach him manners, because Matthew was curled in a ball around my leg crying. Caity was pacing and verbally talking herself down from an emotional cliff that Rowan and her weren't in the same class. William was randomly hitting me, saying he wanted ice cream NOW. (Again, manners are MIA) I just looked at the mom of ditched friend and tried to think of viable excuses for why Johnny acted so rude, as the friend stood there looking crushed. While dragging William with my leg, and carrying Matthew over my shoulder, I found Johnny. We went to the classrooms. William and Matthew are now completely overwhelmed with all the noise and people and they are hungry and tired and they have turned to completely terrors. They are wrestling and screaming. Matthew has a runny nose. William is just yelling as loud as he can every ten seconds. At first I try to give an apologetic smile to everyone around me as I patiently dealt with the problem. That shifted to "Let's just get the heck out of here" mode. Johnny had to go tell his teacher something about himself to get his ice-cream ticket. I asked him what he was going to say. He said "I'm going to say I LOVE reading." I told him that was perfect. He went up to his teacher and said, "I love TV!" I'm sure she was impressed. I said, "Really, TV?" He said, "TV was the best thing this summer." A commentary started in my head: Did TV take you to the zoo? Did TV take you to the beach? Was TV fun when we went camping? How was TV at playing catch? And so on. At this point, I had resigned. William and Matthew somehow have filthy faces at this point (And remember- Matthew has a runny nose to boot.) They are still yelling and fighting. I haven't acknowledged poor Caity during this whole thing. She was incessantly talking. She was anxious and trying to process everything and was on the way to an anxiety attack, I could tell. She just kept talking and talking. I wish I was listening to her concerns. It was hard to this with William and Matthew hitting me and their theatrics. By the time we made it to Caity's classroom, Meet the Teacher was over (because we had the times wrong.) She was so overwhelmed with where everything was supposed to go, she was in near tears. William was pulling books off of shelves. Matthew was crying and wiping snot all over his face. Johnny kept asking to play outside and asking why we weren't outside and how much longer it would go outside. Meanwhile, I was trying to scan a barcode with all the class rules, and volunteer responsibilities. I stink at technology. Throw in crying kids, it doesn't get better- I'll say that much. The next thirty minutes were more of the same. kids refusing to come down stairs, Johnny running off, Caity talking, Me trying to keep it classy and not completely lose it.
Every one was watching. And yes, I know that's an exaggeration, but it really was bad.
My dreams of "Cute family that has it together" (Ha!) were dashed. I was humbled.
I saw a lot of pity. I felt pretty isolated. I remembered every school function that this had happened at. In that moment I literally wondered if moving to a completely new place was the best solution. I decided that was irrational, and I just needed to man up.
As we finally left the school, I thought- "Well, that was a nightmare."
But I'm so grateful I got to be there. I'm grateful I get to be a mom. I'm grateful that it was "a nightmare" and not what every day looks like for us. I learned a lot that day, and hopefully the future will go better. We got home and vacuumed the confetti and washed the dishes. We sat on the couch and read stories. I sat on Caity's bed and was finally able to listen to all her concerns while she processed everything. I was able to talk Johnny with help from Dad about manners and listening, and good ways to deal with stressful situations that don't involve running away. William and Matthew went straight to bed after getting some food (very quickly might I add.)
It was a bad night. It isn't a bad life.
It's a good life.
And I wanted to remember amidst the flowery-life-is-beautiful posts, there are days in the trenches with grenades going off in every direction, and there is still something beautiful in that. Life isn't a product, it's a process and I am learning, we are learning as family.
And here's me trying to get a normal picture of four kids:
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