Tales of a Tired Parent

The week leading up to graduation is always hectic.  This time, the week after has been just as bad.

We blew off  both the band banquet and senior awards night because my son just didn't want to sit through three hours of name calling for two nights. Well, neither did his parents. He was just as satisfied getting his plaques and certificates of achievements and honors from the office without applause. We have become the lame family in some regards.

We did attend spring sports awards night. My son got his fourth year varsity letter and was MVP of the tennis team.  My oldest also received those honors, five years ago, for softball.  My husband was a proud papa, and I give him all the credit for it, coaching them, driving them to lessons, and sitting through all of it. I could barely show up for a few games/matches each season. When my daughter was pitching in high school, another softball parent mentioned to a friend of mine that she didn't know I had gotten divorced.......bahahaha....she couldn't think of any other reason I wasn't sitting in the softball stands every day with my husband! That still cracks me up.  Yeah, lady, I had two other kids to take places and do crap with!

Graduation day.........on the positive side, it's held downtown at a grand theatre. On the negative side, the tickets are unassigned seating, so when they open the doors, it's the Cincy Who concert, all over again.  Parents are truly insane people, especially considering you are just sitting for two hours to hear 400 names being read. The only time I could even see my son from my seat was when he walked across the stage to get his diploma.  How thrilling. Can you tell this is my third time through?

The next day was Middle Child's recital. I realize her vocal coach chooses her songs based on vocal range, but it's hilarious that she had her sing, 'Can't Help Lovin Dat Man' from Showboat.  She did a great job though.

The following morning, we got up before the crack of dawn to take our son to his two day college orientation.  Can you say "overkill"? That was not worth two days of my time, nor hotel expenses. The kids stayed in the dorms, so maybe they thought that was a nice preview for them. My son has stayed in dorms before, so not necessary.  Some of the lowlights: the boxed lunch served to parents that included an innocent looking small dish of watermelon. The man across from me took a bite, began choking, and spit it out. He claimed it had jalapeño in it. I didn't buy that, so I ate a very small piece. Sure enough, it was hot as hell going down. What psycho cook sprinkles cayenne pepper on watermelon?

Our other fun was waiting 2.5 hours for our son to register for classes in a computer lab.  Parents were specifically uninvited and more self-promotion sessions for the university were suggested. No thanks! After an hour, I started to wonder where the hell he was. He had a paper from an advisor on what to take, and he had done his orientation homework last week (which also took hours), learning how to sign up for classes. He finally sent me a text that read, "This scheduling is a pain in the ass!!!!"  And this is my drama-free child. I texted and asked if there were helpers in the room. He said there were 8, but that wasn't enough because it was a new scheduling program that apparently had glitches, making it impossible to sign up for labs, lectures and recitations for a single class.  He was not a happy camper. It finally got worked out, but only by manually going through hundreds of choices, because the parameters thing wasn't working at all. We knew it was bad when we saw an Asian kid come out and say to his parents, "That was HORRIBLE!"

My husband and I debated the merits of scheduling back in the day, when you stood outside an administration building in a line of hundreds of people with your greenbar printouts, waiting to get to the registrar's window, only to find out the class you needed to graduate was full. I think those old ladies took great pleasure in seeing our despair. So yes, yes we really did have it worse.