Dad on Duty #61

The weight of their little lives is surprisingly heavy.

It will grind you down.

The trick to not being crushed by it, I’m realizing, is to spread that weight across my colleagues here at the school, and across time.

I think part of the problem is that I field that weight only one day a week; it concentrates and intensifies it. For that one day per week, I believe, intently and intensively, that I must bear it *all*, to relieve my co-workers who have carried it the other four days.

Turns out, that’s a bad idea.

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Today was Grandparents Day. Mimi’s, Nana’s, Papa’s and PopPops were all invited to lunch.

And they showed up in force. I think every single one of them in the whole country.

Every time I think “so *that’s* what the cafeteria looks like when it’s completely full”, we have a new event that resets that measure.

As usual, the three biggest challenges are:

• getting the little kids through the huge mass of grown ups in the very small space, without them freaking out
• Making sure there are no unstickered grownups seeping through the frequently open doors (it happened a few times….we caught them)
• Keeping kids from leaking out of the building.

Unique to this type of event, there is a fourth challenge: the “I don’t want my Gigi to leave!” meltdown. There were a lot of those.

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As teachers head back to class, Marc and I start accountability.

“You got everybody?” This time, more often than usual for special events, the answer from several teachers was “nope”.

Grandparents, unfamiliar with the routines, have sidetracked a bunch of kids. Some are still in the cafeteria or on the playground, socializing. Many are on self-directed tours of the school.

Within 30 minutes we herd all the little goats and everyone is accounted for.

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Sometimes at large events like this, we can’t run everyone through the background check system. We rely on brute force to control access. The front desk slaps what we call “little stickers” on the visitors, which means two things 1) the office staff at least saw this person and 2) they’re not allowed past the main foyer. One of us then posts at that threshold and stops anyone without a “real” sticker.

We don’t like that, for many reasons.

Today, Joycelyn and Rosie committed to getting a real sticker on every person. I imagined them as WWII soldiers, disheveled, helmets slightly askew, gritting their teeth: “no one gets on this beach!! You hear me?!? Nobody!!” shouts Joycelyn, in her best John Wayne

And they did it. Every single visitor….and there were *hundreds*……went through the background check system, got a real sticker, and were still on time for lunch.

Spectacular work.

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The good kids need attention too.

Whether it’s your “other” child at home who is never any trouble, or the student at school who is helpful and well behaved, they need our time and recognition.

I have a handful of those kids with whom I was able to spend time last year. They would help me, along with the high-maintenance boys, to do some special projects.

They, of course, love doing that. I would pull them out of class and they’d get to distribute books to third grade or put up ocean-themed decorations in the Kindergarten hall.

Everyday I’ve been up there so far this year, those boys have come to me; “can we do our thing today?”

And so far, I’ve had to say no every time. The high maintenance kids are sucking up my time like a sponge.

For all this I’ve described to you today represents….truly….only about 1/10th of what I did or was involved in.

I’ve gotta think of a new way to handle this, and be in three places at once. Different approach.

And maybe don’t try to solve all of the kids’ problems in one day.

The weight of their little lives. If I’m not careful now, it will grind me down.