Happenings at School

Today I had some time to kill before picking up the kiddos from school so I sat in the parking lot reading a book. It was nice day so I had the windows rolled down and could hear conversations from others. It’s actually quite interesting what people will talk about on their cell phones when someone is sitting a few feet away from you. Anyway, I hear someone comment on how “they’re out early today” and look up from my book to see what they are talking about.

I see one of the third grade classes and my son’s first grade class. They are lining up in several lines and have balloons. I watch them for a bit and they aren’t doing anything interesting so I go back to my reading which is way more interesting than watching 30 - 40 kids get into several lines. After a bit I look up and they still aren’t doing anything but being rowdy on the concrete so back to my book I go. Then I hear what sounds like fun and look up.

They are having relays. There are about 4 lines and each line has a balloon. The person in front passes the balloon behind him over his head and the next in line passes the balloon behind him through his legs and so on until you get to the last person and they run in front. Start process over. Looks interesting. I find my son and sit and watch what happens. Finally one of the teams wins and it wasn’t my son’s team.

What happened next leaves me somewhat perplexed. My son has a one-on-one helper and while I know she can’t on top of him the whole time I also have a hard time believing what I saw. My son’s team lost so he ran off. No one followed him. My first instinct was to run after him and then rip into his helper. Instead I sat back and watched to see what would happen.

My son, remember he’s in first grade, runs off. He doesn’t run far only to the fence. No one comes after him. Hmmm. I’m looking at the teachers and his helper and they are busy. My son then leaves the fence area and is walking down the sidewalk that will eventually lead to the street in the back of the school. No one is coming after him. At this point I can’t sit and watch anymore. I get out of my car and then see his helper looking for my son. I walk slowly so I can continue to witness this incident. His helper finally catches up to my son and gets him back over with the class. At the same time, she sees me and asks me if I had been there for awhile. She thought maybe he saw me and was going to me. I told her no I hadn’t been standing there and proceeded to tell her how he lost the game and ran off. I was nice and polite but there was also an undercurrent that stated “Watch it lady.”

If that wasn’t enough after school I let the kiddos play while the parking lot is clearing out. We are getting ready to walk into the parking lot when my son decides to dart out into the path of a clunky SUV. I yelled for him to stop. The mom was horrified. I was so thankful that kiddo didn’t get run over that I promptly ripped into him for running out into the parking lot.

AAAGGGHHH!. I don’t know how more of this I can handle. Thank goodness that in both incidents my son was safe but it was scary nonetheless.