August 28, 2012
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Somewhere to be….
Yesterday, during the kids’ scheduled dental appointments, we were at the pool. I was completely oblivious to the fact that we were playing hooky from the dentist, even though they had called to confirm and required me to return the confirmation call, which I actually did. But that was last week. Who remembers last week, when the days are so mindlessly unscheduled? I don’t even remember yesterday.
So while I was at the pool with three boys who were either under water or inhaling food the whole time, and one girl who was reading voraciously in the shaded lounge chair next to me when I wasn’t forcing her to go in the pool and swim, the dentist and his entourage of technicians and assistants were twiddling their thumbs, I suppose. I called today to apologize and reschedule, and they said they would waive the $50 per person missed appointment fee. YOWZA! Good thing I always politely return those confirmation calls, even if I don’t actually follow through on the appointments!
They rescheduled the kids for Thursday. Here’s hoping I can remember this whole thing come Thursday morning.
Friday morning is the “Meet the Teacher” extravaganza at Bubble Elementary. It’s always a ridiculously chaotic scene — the kids want to rush to their classrooms to see who is in their class and actually meet their teachers. However, once you get there, you are given a double sided sheet of paper with instructions on where to put each of the sixty gazillion things you purchased for the back-to-school supply list. They usually try to make it seem fun, like a scavenger hunt. Except that it’s just overwhelming, crazy, and not at all fun.
“Put your glue sticks in the bucket near where you would hang something on a cold day!” Oooh, oooh! I know – near the coat rack! YAAAAYYYY! (Except as soon as I think about the “coat rack” I think about “lice” and I get the willies. But that’s just me. The glue sticks don’t seem to mind it at all.)
While “playing” the scavenger hunt game, parents are trying to talk to one another and not snap at the whining siblings within earshot of the new teacher. And then there’s a second classroom to rush to and do it all over again. Then comes the “ice cream party,” where the PTA feeds kids ice cream sundaes at 10am while simultaneously throwing papers at the parents and asking them to write out big checks.
But at least we have something to do on Friday, so who’s complaining?
Comments (4)
this was funny – but if you have to worry about the lice just tell the PTA that their number one objective should be to make everyone come to school naked and with their heads shaved….my son had his hair shaved in 2nd grade because he didn’t want bugs hiding in there
Sorry that it is such a madhouse. Hope the chaos calms and everyone can get back to normal. You are living a charmed life – no missed appointment fees – wow!!
Glad they waived the fee for you.
The scavenger hunt sounds like more chaos that you really could do without. At least it’s something to do!
@mlbncsga - Naked, head shaved elementary school – now that would be quite the PTA initiative!
@murisopsis - Yippee! I’m sure I’ll spend that $100 on PTA stuff Friday.
@gottobereal64 - It is total chaos. I was thinking today – why don’t they just tell us where they are going to keep all this stuff when they send us the list of what to buy? Then we could pre-load the pencil boxes, binders, etc. the way the teachers want them.