my harrowing escape from the school concert

Hello, friends! Friday Miss A was off school and P had been up Thursday night coughing and gagging, so Friday we kept the boys home. It was a blissful day. Seriously. One of those rare days where everyone plays nicely together and I even got a lot of work done. It made me want so badly to PULL 'EM OUT!

Then over the weekend the boys were sick and now I am sick. I feel a tiny bit better today but yesterday I sent a lot of whiny texts to Jason about how I wanted to die. It's a very tragic cold I've got.

So back to last Thursday, and the school fundraising gala/concert. The kids and I sat in the very back row of the auditorium, because I was trying to find a place where 1) they could maybe be loud without bothering people, because P has a severe whispering disability, and 2) they could play on the floor behind the back row of seats, because sitting all day at school then sitting through speech then sitting through a concert isn't my boys' "thing."

Sadly, many other people also flocked to the back. Those people were then treated to G kicking the backs of their seats and P sticking his stinky Croc-bedecked feet up on the seat backs just behind other people's ears. They also got to listen to me snapping and hissing directives at the kids every few seconds. At intermission, after Miss A's class had done their thing, I gathered up the kids to go.

It was SO crowded. And here I am weaving my way through shoulder-to-shoulder crowds of people with my enormous purse/bag o' entertainment, and trailing three people behind me who are only 40% invested in staying with me. We got out of the crowded lobby and into the side hallway where Miss A was supposed to be, and Haney was seized with a desire to run. I was holding her hand, and she started booking down the hall, so I was forced to lean backward to keep from falling over. I realized I looked like a person walking an ill-trained dog. And that is how we arrived at the classroom where Miss A was supposed to be.

Now, consider, I have only seen her classmates once or twice. I went into the room and had to study every face to see if I was in the right place. Finally, some teacher told me 3rd grade was up in the balcony. What he said was, "You're gonna have to drag all these kids up there, I'm afraid." Ha!

He must have seen the look of defeat on my face because he then offered to keep the kids for me, or to go get Miss A. I said no, even though I should have accepted the offer.

I didn't even know where the balcony was, and I wasn't prepared to navigate the lobby again, yet. The kids and I sat down on a bench way off to one side. I thought about just waiting until everyone sat down again but it was almost 8 and my kids' bedtime is 7:15, and I was about 30 minutes from home, and the longer I waited the more my next 24 hours was going to suck. So eventually we tried again. P spotted the balcony stairs and the stairs were a big mess of people coming down walking across the entire staircase, so we were waiting to ascend until there was a place for us to walk, but then people were coming up behind us saying, "Excuse me!" for us to make way... I was annoyed. And tired. Everything about the night was complicated and confusing and uncomfortable, like a bad dream.

I remember when Miss A turned 7, that seemed SO OLD but she still seemed so little. I'm feeling that space again, between what I expected for a certain age or set of ages, and what life is really like. When I say my kids are 9, 7, and 5, I feel like everything should be easy. Tons of stuff *is* easy. I rarely have to physically dress them. I don't have to diaper them or physically feed them. They are comfortable enough with other people that we can go places without them climbing me in terror. I don't have to buckle their car seats for them. So when I hit upon something that's still really hard, it surprises me.

Everything about that evening was really hard, dragging my little ones through that crowd by myself, and trying to navigate a totally unfamiliar situation and place, and not having anyone I could trust to watch the kids a second, or go get Miss A. At the local elementary school, I have that. A lot. I am really lucky and there are a lot of people I can count on.

So anyway, I collected Miss A and dragged them all through the lobby again, and walked through the dark parking lot in the rain, and drove 30 minutes home, and got them in bed by 9ish. And was so relieved to have a good excuse to skip out on everything on Friday. Something about life right now is turning me back into a hermit -- I want to skip everything and stay in my house all the time!

In unrelated health news: The geneticist can't see us until 10/31 so we are trying to figure out if we can see someone else with this hospital group, or if we need to start over elsewhere to be seen sooner. This has been going on for a week now... I hate waiting for people to call me back, and I hate how every time I call back the same process happens but nothing is ever accomplished.