The Morning in Hell

If you've been keeping up with my blog this year, you know I'm not real pleased with Will's school. They are disorganized, don't involve parents in what they should, and send home fund-raising items several times a month - just to name a few of my pet peaves.

First, I was sick all night. Probably didn't sleep more than two hours. It was hard to wake up and since I had to be at Will's school by 8:00, I couldn't go back to sleep. Ready in plenty of time, I went to pick up my camera in the computer room and it wasn't there. I spent way to long looking for it and couldn't find it. Stopping at Walmart for a throw-away camera put me at school just in time to see Will's group walk out of the building and into the fenced in area.

I had to park right by the fence as I was late. Then I had to walk almost two blocks to the main office to get a visitor badge. While there were only three people in line in front of me, it took thirteen minutes to get through - yes, I counted them.

Then I walked two blocks to get back to where I started - just the opposite side of the fence. I was suprised to see an information booth set up for parents. I stopped by to see if they could help me locate where Will's class was - there were literally thousands of children on the field. They couldn't. They didn't even know what they had on the table; some sort of print out. But they didn't know what it was and if it was theirs or to be handed out. I was told to look for a group of small children in -- "What color was your son wearing today? Oh, green. Yeah, just look for a group of small children in green."

As it turned out they were at the furtherest corner you could find; about two blocks through sweaty bodies, 90 degree tempertures, and no shade.

When I finally reached him I was impressed with the smooth operation of the events. The coach was in charge and they were at drawn lanes doing several events. There are six classes of pre-k children and each class was in it's own lane. The first event I watched was hurdles. The coach would signal about every 30 seconds and the next batch would run off and jump the hurdles. It was cute.

The next race was the chicken throw. The coach had a bucket of plucked colored chickens that were about twelve inches long. Each child was suppose to throw their chicken as far as possible, run up to it, and throw it again until they passed the end. This didn't work quite as well with the 30 second batch thing as some children took four or five minutes to complete the course. You had children getting hit by flying chickens all over the place. It was funny.

When that was completed, and it only took about twenty minutes, things went to hell in a handbasket.

They walked us all over to the opposite side of the field only to realize we were early, so then we walked all the way to near my car and allowed the kids to play at the playscape. When it was time, we went back across the field to the pitching events. Only, there was no coach and no one to organize it. None of the teachers even had an idea of what the events were suppose to be.

Eventually they lined all the kids up in 12 lines and just gave them whatever assorted balls were laying around; crocket, backetball, football, baseball. But no one took charge of the event and timing. So you had children throwing balls (some very hard) constantly and others running in the middle of the meyham to retrieve their throws. Every parent on the sideline was wincing and complaining.

Fifteen minutes later we take the kids to their classrooms for a snack. I helped those at the table with Will open their packages and drinks. After the break, we were lead all the way through the school and out the opposite side to the bouncy houses. The teachers instructed the children to remove their shoes, leave on their socks, and then climb in. Of corse, they had to walk through about twenty-five feet of burs and stickers to get there. They were only allowed to bounce about three minutes when someone realized there was a mix up on the schedule and we weren't supose to be there. I helped pull stickers and burs off of four different pairs of socks and put shoes on small sweaty feet. Then we walked through the entire school and back out the other side to play on the playground again.

We were told due to the mixup the children would play on the playground for an hour, then participate in a tug-of-way. At this point, it's 97 outside. There is still no shade and I've had it. I tell Will bye, and head out.

As I walked through the school, and back to my car, I checked how many photos I'd taken to see if I should drop off the camera on the way home. I took nine. And if I remember correctly, one of those was an accidental photo of the hot cracked ground.