Hey all, how are we?
So, today I had one of those moments, a defining moment if you will. It was not a defining moment of massive consequence, in fact it was as defining moments go pretty abysmal however I still believe it was one.
I will paint a picture for you, set the scene and start at the beginning like any good tale should. It was 1455 hours in the afternoon and I was standing outside the classroom of my youngest son talking to a friend whose daughter is in Leo’s class. It was freezing cold, I was aware my nose was running slightly and my hands had gone pink they were so cold.
Karl was with me but he was on the other side of the walk way talking to the school’s wellbeing mentor who was I later found on recalling to Karl an ‘incident’ that had occurred at lunch time where Leo has been told to put his jumper on and said no (more of that later!)
It is a typical town school, lots of parents around, lots of hustle and bustle and plenty of laughter. You can almost tell the day people have had by charting their face on the school run. There are those who have been crazy busy and look stressed, those who have had an amazing day so are cheerful and happy, those who are excited to hug their little people, those who are in a rush to the fourth after school club of the week, those who are organised and have remembered to pop to the bakery for their child’s chosen treat and those who are looking at the little white bags in the other parents hands and you can tell are thinking, ‘shit, I forgot the bakery!’
I watch the other parents each and every day and I always wonder how they do it, how do they remain so cool and composed in the midst of absolute chaos? I have two children with a school year separating them, the pick up points for each are not within sight of each other so you have to judge which will come out first or take a chance and run the gauntlet. I always lose one child whether it be to playing with a friend, off finding a football or just running off in general and I never ever get a child who has all the stuff they went in that morning with them so I spend a small portion of each and every pick up rifling through lost property for whatever it is they have lost that day.
I then spend a good ten minutes shouting at them to come with me as they want to play football and on days like today I did so while violently shivering even though I was wearing about six layers. So today when I eventually got both boys to follow me and we met up with Karl Leo asked if he could have a gingerbread man. Karl explained to him that because of his refusal and rudeness about wearing his jumper earlier in the day he would not be getting a ‘ginger’ as he calls them. An episode from yesterday also came up where Leo received ‘minutes’ off his playtime for stomping on an apple that had fallen to the floor in the lunch hall.
So cue giant, heated, angry tantrum from Leo which was typical of a day we had to park miles away because Karl and I had been running late in the first place! So we did the usual Fisk walk back to the car with one child screaming and wrestling and the other skipping along blissfully unaware.
when we finally got back to the car after disturbing every member of public in the High Street with Leo’s screaming and finally had got in I put the school bags and jumpers on my lap along with Leo’s coat which at one point he had thrown into the road I took a deep breath. It was then it occurred to me that I am okay at a fair few things in this world, I am a little bit good at some others however (here comes the defining moment) I am absolutely crap at the poxy school run!
tiredfromwhitstable 