Meet the Teacher AKA The Night From Hell

Cheers ya'llSo we’re comin’ in hot to “Meet the Teacher” night from a week at the beach because what else would prime you to the point of combustion than a 3 hour drive with 3 exhausted kids, 2 exhausted parents, and one large dog? The baby has pissed in his car seat because quite frankly when we stopped at the McDonalds we totally forgot to take him to the bathroom. I mean we were a tad distracted with the 5 year old who beelined to the playground and the 7 year old who had an absolute meltdown because the toy offered in the Happy Meal was no longer from “The Secret Life of Pets” and “HOW AM I GONNA FINISH MY COLLECTION NOOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW?!?!”

We make it to the house and send the kids inside while we unload the car in the sweltering heat. Its at least “Forty nine eleventy” degrees as my 5 YO informs me. Yeah….I’m aware of that kid now get your finger out of your nose and start carrying something.

I manage to put them out for naps that are just long enough for them to play in bed for an hour and fall asleep for 35 seconds before we have to get ready to go to the Eaglet Extravaganza/Meet the Teacher/ The 7th Ring of Hell in Dante’s Inferno.

The baby screams bloody freaking murder the entire way to the school which should normally only take us about 20 minutes but since they have been repaving our road for THE LAST 3 FREAKING MONTHS it now takes us at least 40. So we crank up the Laurie Berkner CD to try and drown out his wails. He sees this as a challenge and accepts boldly crescendoing to a decibel level that I’m certain will break the windows at any given moment.

We make it to the school along with 70 billion other families and it takes the two of us to manhandle the baby into the stroller as he shrieks and arches his back with superhuman strength. We have to park in Guam as we are late and there are no more parking spaces and hike the rest of the way into school with Eeny and Meeny screeching that their backpacks are too heavy to carry. By the time we make it to the 2 mile long line in the sweltering heat we are beginning to turn on each other. 

We wait in the check in line, then we wait in the transportation line, then the lunch money line, and then the “Oh look! They have snow cones” line. The only good part about this endeavor so far is that we live in a tiny rural town so it’s more like social hour as I meet and greet all of my friends (well, my kids’ friends’ moms). I run into an old friend I haven’t seen in a few years and I happily wave to her.

“Hi!!!!! How are you?!”

She distractedly stares right through me.

“I’m fine,” she says. But I’m thinking she may not recognize me judging by the blank look on her face.

“Are you? You look a little weird,” I  poke at her.

At this point she begins to tell me of a horrible, unspeakable tragedy that has befallen her family. Out of respect for her I will not elaborate but suffice it to say I felt the need to crawl under a rock for my lack of tact. I make polite, awkward conversation until I can extract myself and we make our way to the kindergarten wing.

We meet Meeny’s teacher and I fake our way through the scavenger hunt that he wants nothing to do with. I watch all the other kindergartners happily locating the American flag, the calendar, and the restroom while my child pulls every single box of toys of the shelf and systematically empties them on to the carpet.

When it’s time to head to the 2nd grade classroom I find Miny playing with a toy vacuum from the Home-Life Center and tell him to put it back. He refuses. Before I even know what’s happening I am in a tug-of-war with this man child over the plastic vacuum. I mean seriously how is it even possible for a 2 year old to be that strong. Before it’s said and done with I am on the floor full on wrestling him while Eeny tries to pry the vacuum from his death grip. By the time we overcome him he has resumed his blood curdling scream and is writhing in my arms as I cheerily wave to the teacher and say “We’ll see you on Wednesday!!”

The whole room is silent, mouths agape staring at us as we make our way out the door. “The Evans are here ya’ll. Behold.”

Things are unraveling quickly by the time we make it to the 2nd grade classroom which isn’t even remotely as entertaining as the K5 room. I’m trying desperately to fill out the “About my child” paperwork while Meeny screams that “THIS CLASS IS BOOOOORIN’” and “I WANNA GO TO MY CLASS”.

The teacher smiles and says “Wow, I don’t know how you do it with 3 kids so close in age.”

“I drink a lot” I reply flatly immediately sorry for saying it. Sometimes I forget that when people don’t know me they don’t get my humor. Well, as far as first impressions go I think I pretty much nailed this one.

The boys finally devolve to the point that the hubs has to take them to the car while I try to salvage any remaining shreds of dignity and politely ask if I might just finish the paperwork at home. Wide eyed and with a huge fake smile plastered on her face (only thinly veiling her horror) the teacher assures me that would be fine.

We are finally all in the car, I call in an order for takeout Chinese, and we head directly to the grocery store to pick up booze to counteract the horror of our evening. By the time we make it to the grocery store we are having one of those “Nothing Fights”. You know the inane bickering. The “why didn’t you just let me out at the door” “Well I wanted to park right here, am I doing it wrong?” “Well we were sitting right at the door I could’ve just jumped out” “I’m in the 2nd dang parking spot it’s 10 feet away!!!” You catch my drift.

I grab 2 bottles of wine and a case of beer and we head to the Chinese restaurant. The end is in sight. We have the 10 minute drive home (assuming the road crew is off for the night) and we can plop them in front of their iPads with some Chinese and catch our breath. 

About 5 miles from home the baby grabs his crotch and screams because dammit if we didn’t forget to take him potty again. We are both screaming to “HOLD IT, JUST WAIT, PULL OVER!!!!” When we swerve into a gravel parking lot. I yank the baby from his carseat and pull him to the side of the road while fumbling with the snaps on his jumper. I get the underwear pulled down and am precariously balancing him at a 90 degree angle to the ground while in my *calmest* voice saying “Okay baby, you can make the pee pee come out now.”

I ignore the passing cars as my sunglasses fall into the pee-soaked grass. “Good job buddy” I say as I wipe my hands on my shorts. Back into the car we go and back at home in a flash. The kids eat and are sent straight to bed because “it’s really late you guys”. Thank God they still can’t tell time.

And that my friends is how we kick off a school year. Cheers ya’ll…..cheers.

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If you like this check out some of my other escapades in My Suburban is a WMD: A Christmas Story or I’m having an emergency.

6 thoughts on “Meet the Teacher AKA The Night From Hell

  1. OMG This is probably the best one yet!!! I love it. It is so raw and so real life. This would have so been our meet the teacher night had Wy been with us but I insisted that Brad stay home with him because I just couldn’t deal with that. You are women hear you roar!!! Also way to go for potty training Miny at 2, Wy is almost 3 and still can’t quite get it. Totally our fault as we put him in pullups on the weekends. Again I just can’t deal with it, especially because we have been going back and forth to Charlotte almost every other weekend. You are doing great things and keep the stories coming. I love them!!

  2. Omg, I feel like you just told my story! This is the second one of yours i have read, and i like your style. Its also nice to know there are others out there with the struggle 😉 i feel like all of my family outings go about like this.

  3. Well yours may be slightly worse than mine lol….but we started our year, my son starting kindergarten, with a broken arm from landing wrong in a cartwheel on the 3rd day of school…and then pooping his pants…not once…but TWICE…all within the first 10 days of school…and the poop 2 days in a row (a Friday & Monday), in which the first time they actually made me leave work & come pick him up (for a thick skid mark) because the school nurse wouldn’t let him go in the bathroom & clean himself up & change his own clothes…which I had actually for once thought ahead & sent a change of shorts & underwear for “just in case”…but not for just in case of a pooping, in case of peeing…cuz he’s 5 & doesn’t want to stop what he’s doing to go potty. So I’m mortified after the first incident, I tell the teacher I can’t even remember the last time he did this, I don’t expect this to happen again…..and then he did it again that next Monday. For real, kid????!!!!!!! Because why? WHY WHY WHY WHY WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY??????????????? Because he didn’t know he could ask the teacher to take him to a different restroom if someone was taking too long in the restroom that’s inside their classroom? Well kid, now you know! NOW. YOU. KNOOOOW. But to make the story worse….or better? The 2nd incident they let him change his clothes & clean himself up. Apparently there was more than just a skid mark like the first time. Some fell out on his underwear onto the floor. He threw his underwear away. And LEFT the POOP on the FLOOR!!!!!!!!!!!!! (WHAT IS HAPPENING RIGHT NOW????!!!!!!!!! I don’t understand what is happening right now!!!!!) And I am losing my mind….and he’s just like “Sorry!” And laughs and laughs…. yes his teacher was the one to find the poop. I am officially mortified. I am afraid to make eye contact. I drank a lot of wine.
    All I know is, This is not how I pictured us starting out this new venture. He’s my only so we’re brand spanking new to this whole Big Kid school thing. But I sure as hell wasn’t supposed to be the mom with the kid crapping his pants. There are not enough words.

  4. I was a prek teacher for 14 yrs. I remember parent’s with 5 kids and their kids running around destroying everything I worked so hard to make nice. They were just trying to corral the kids.
    I am laughing so hard I can hardly breathe. OMYGOSH I love this story!! I have to send this to my niece who just had her 4th boy. TY, I needed to laugh!!

  5. I cannot stop reading your blog. You remind me of every member of my family. the ones with kids, the ones without kids, my sister and I, my cousins and I. Know that your crazy is just normal people behavior (I hope for our sake) with a brilliantly hilarious point of view. Thank you so much for bringing so much laughter to me today! Forwarded to my sister and I cannot wait to hear her laughter!

  6. So, I am just seeing this after reading the one from Chapin News. I was cracking up because I totally remember this like it was yesterday. I honestly felt so bad for you sitting there trying to fill out the paperwork. And, you probably know me well enough now, that it takes a lot to ruffle me. I didn’t think anything bad about you as far as first impressions go. ?

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