The Po Show

First Day of Fall

Or Autumn. Anyway, it's supposed to be 83 degrees today. So much for crisp fall weather! Of course it was 48 degrees when we got up yesterday. Thanks, Ivan.

Last night was Matthew's Open House, which sounds like you bring the kids, right? As opposed to Parents' Night, when, as the name implies, just parents go to school. Okay, it's semantics, but it was still a big problem for us.

We picked up Ross at the train station, then headed over to school for the Open House, which was to start at 6:45. We discovered that it was expected that parents only would attend the events (7:00 Principal's address in the theatre, 7:30 grade presentation in the media center, 8:00 class presentation), and that kids were to go up to the gym, where there were "babysitters" (aka four teenage boys). There were a TON of kids, all running around throwing balls around the gym. At first there weren't very many, and Matthew and Tessa were happily running around, so Ross and I went to the first presentation.

He went to check on them at 7:30 and I went into the class presentation. He never came back. Around 7:40 I saw Matthew's face peer through the glass part of the door. I waved. Then Ross looked through (with Tessa's beaming at me from his arms) and motioned that they'd meet me later outside the other door. I sat for a second more, then got a bad feeling and made my way out. I looked for them in the halls, and when Matthew saw me he ran over and buried his face into me. Obviously the gym had been too noisy and overwhelming for him. Ross said later that he had been wandering around the perimeter of the room, his face bright red, not yet crying but obviously on the edge. Poor boy!

Ross suggested we go down to Matthew's classroom to wait for the teacher and the other parents. Apparently the grade presentation went very long, because they didn't show up till 8:15. Matthew was beside himself by that point and Tessa was rolling around on the floor. His poor teacher had to do a speed version of her presentation since it was so late, and I had both Tessa and Matthew on my lap, sitting in Matthew's little bitty chair at his little bitty desk.

Um, this got long and I was talking about fall... Oh well, fall is always hard. Starting a new school year is always hard. It's even harder when you've moved to a new house and a new school and a new state. It's harder still when you're a ball of constant anxiety like Matthew, who talked to me yesterday afternoon about all the "strange things that have been happening since we moved here."

Hope things settle down a bit soon. On a brighter note, I got to leave Tessa at nursery school yesterday for a whole HOUR. I drove around with the radio blasting Green Day and went to the post office all by myself. Par-tay :)!