I have been a parent for a while now. Seventeen years, six months and twelve days to be exact. There have been many fiascos and cock-ups in that time. I am thinking in particular of an episode involving the garden, paint, footprints, and two toddlers who decided not to bother stopping play to visit the toilet, when the water butt was handy.
I digress.
But last week’s experience with the departure for school was excruciating on so many levels.
Boy wakes up tired and reluctant to go to school on a regular basis. Everything aches, apparently. And he’d rather be home-schooled.
His uniform is usually on the bannister, having been unpeeled off his bedroom floor by me, the half-hearted house fairy, and on this day, it was no different. He found his clothes easily and dressed slowly, allowing himself plenty of time to lament his lot.
However, on this particular day, Boy was fortunate enough to be swimming at school – such is the luck of a child whose mixed comp’ is now located on a former girls’ private convent facility. We’d looked out his swimming gear the night before, to avoid trouble. We were being organised.
Boy wanted to take his **PE kit too, in case swimming could not go ahead. “OK,” said I. “That is eminently sensible. Let’s get that ready”, whilst wondering why this information was not proffered the night before… but I was trying to stay positive. Now where the f@*k was the PE kit?
The PE kit was located with some faffing, but the suggested receptacles for it were not to Boy’s taste. He shunned them (too big, too small, too crunchy), eventually shoving his PE t-shirt and shorts back into the original nylon drawstring sports bag. (Might I add that I have never spent quite so much on a t-shirt as I did when I purchased that particular item off the uniform list.)
Number One left for school with no trouble. (Or at least, with only a minor panic, like every day, when we momentarily can’t find the gate key to let her out.)
Boy left for school, harangued as usual out of the door by a banshee (me) who was warning of the imminent arrival of the bus as if it were the last train out of Colditz. His hair wasn’t brushed, but he had done his teeth. Off he waddled.
At this point, I realised Number Two was still upstairs. STILL UPSTAIRS?! I harangued a bit more. THE BUS IS LITERALLY COMING!
They departed. Hoorah. The fortifications closed behind them and I breathed properly for the first time in thirty minutes.
All was quiet for a moment in their wake…then the gate buzzer went off. I peered out. There was Boy, when he should have been waddling up the road to get on the bus, calmly calling me on the intercom*.
“WHAT???” yelled I.
“My PE kit,” he requests.
“YOU MEAN THE THING WE HAVE DISCUSSED/PACKED/UNPACKED/ ARGUED OVER AND RE-PACKED THIS MORNING?”
“Yes. Can you get it please?”
I ran out wit the PE kit he’d managed to miss – placed prominently on the door mat, and thrust it towards him fast.
“No, just the top and shorts.”
“TAKE THE BAG!”
“I don’t need the bag.”
“PLEASE TAKE THE BAG! IT’S EASIER!”
He took it – but my protestations were then ignored. He removed the items from the bag and lobbed the empty husk back at me through the gate. He now had two loose pieces of uniform in his grasp, and off he went. I watched him go, agog. Surely a bag would have been easier..?!
Six minutes later, I received a phone call from his sister, Number Two, calling from the bus. Boy, apparently, was stressing because his top and his shorts were no longer about his person. They had somehow disappeared, and were missing presumed dropped in a pile at the bus stop, his sister informed me.
Mini Seymour and I, with precious little time to spare before we ourselves had to leave and with twelve inside jobs still to do, set off for the bus stop to retrieve the small heap of garments purportedly left behind on the muddy ground. Did I mention the price of the t-shirt? Boy (late to the party as always) phoned as we were en-route. “Can you just…”
” I AM JUST! BUT I COULD DO WITHOUT THIS!” It’s one of my standard phrases.
Mini and I reached the recently-vacated bus stop, our teeth half brushed and our hair dishevelled, and scanned the ground. There was nothing there.
Nothing. Not a sausage. Not a single monogrammed garment to be seen.
I gave up. That’ll be a new PE kit, then.
*
Later, when the scholars were home, it transpired that one of Boy’s sisters (presumably not the one that phoned me?) tucked his PE stuff into his bag at some point. Did she scoop it off the floor? Was it dangling precariously from his shoulder? Did she take pity on him and try to help? Either way, how can he not have noticed? And why did they not communicate this at the time? Some things in life will forever remain shrouded in mystery.
Mini Seymour and I left for school that morning feeling like we needed a holiday. Boy Seymour and his dramas come out of nowhere, but come they do. And often. I really think I need to expect them – mitigate for them. Yes, perhaps I’ll buy that spare PE top after all, and a spare tie, whilst I’m at it. We’re bound to need them soon.
*It sounds posher than it is.
**PE or P.E.?Or PE.? Suggestions welcome.
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