Ride ‘em Cowboy
Ride ‘em Cowboy
Current mood: 
listless
Seth was so excited about the Rodeo Parade at his preschool today. We woke up late, and rushed to dress him up with cowboy hat (“It looks funny. I want a brown one.”) and a blue bandana around the neck. We dug out some cowboy boots in the garage (“Those are for girls.”) and threw together a totally ghetto ride (“It’s not a horse, Mommy, it’s a pony.”) This pony had a dowel for a body, one of Josh’s old dress socks (so thread worn you could see the newspaper we stuffed into it) rubberbanded to the dowel, and glued dark brown fabric pieces on to the sock (two eyes, two nostrils, a mouth and lots of strips for the mane). I used the “hard as nails” glue that you would usually use for gluing metal to wood or something heavier than fabric, but the stuff dries fast. You have to make sure you get the cap back on right away or else you won’t be able to get the cap off again… ever. I was in a hurry and Elmer’s wasn’t going to cut it. Seth said, “I like my pony, ” and I thought, ‘Aww… he’s so innocent that he can’t tell what a jacked-up piece of work it is.’ Josh admired it, too, and I was starting to feel a little less like the awful, bad mommy that didn’t plan ahead.
I didn’t have time to make a lunch and bring his tote bag, but I figured I could make two trips because I needed to get him there a little early, even before the parade start time, and the school is just around the corner. So we ran out the door, and got to the school to find that the parents were all camped out in the parking lot waiting for the parade to start (many of them don’t live just around the corner). I was braless and wearing the same clothes as the day before, had not brushed my teeth, had puffy eyes from allergies, and I don’t think my hair was brushed. Oh, and I didn’t have my hearing aids in. If I don’t have those, I don’t hear. (Kind of nice to be able to turn off the volume to the world when I want to, but if I don’t have them, I’m faking it. That joke you just made that I’m laughing at? I didn’t hear it. I don’t know the punch line. I’m telling you, I’m faking it.) We took the opportunity to dodge everybody and entered the school through a different door.
Seth’s school uses the hallway to store everyone’s tote bags. They have little signs with their names to mark where to put their matching tote bags with their names written on the sides. This is where the teachers keep all the students’ personal belongings, like jackets and toys they weren’t supposed to bring to school, and their folders with their work in it. So we’re walking down the hallway, and every single stinking kid in the place has a store-bought stick pony parked under their names. I mean, every color of the rainbow, all shapes and sizes, but obviously store-bought. Now there’s no way that Seth isn’t going to notice that his stick pony came from the other side of the tracks, but I’m optimistic because he was just professing undying love for it before we left the house.
I dropped him off at his classroom, ran back to the car, and drove back home. The digital camera wasn’t charged and the SLR didn’t have any film. I did brush my teeth, hug Josh and grab my hearing aids before charging right back out the door… (or was it grab Josh and hug my hearing aids?) incidentally there wasn’t enough time to make a lunch then either.
I got back to the school right as the parade started. Two teachers carried a banner with the words “Stick Pony Rodeo Round Up” and they danced/walked down the walkway to an upbeat children’s country song. The children followed single file, all riding a stick pony. Some were laughing and smiling while their parents captured the Kodak moment. Some kids were dressed to the nines and others just had a hat. All wore a bandana that they had made in class. And there’s my Seth… not smiling, holding his pony awkwardly in front of him, and hating this public display. Gone was the excitement about Rodeo Parade Day.
Let me fill you in about Seth’s lack of participation in anything public… whenever there is a free carnival-type thing at the park, he will not play. He won’t toss a bean bag in the hole—not even when free candy is involved. He rarely sings in Primary at church, but he knows all the songs because he sings them at home away from prying eyes. There’s a boardwalk and amusement park in Kemah, TX with a really cool fountain. There are a bunch of holes in the ground and they each take turns spouting water. The kids laugh and run around trying to guess where the water will come out. Totally fun, right? Not to Seth… not in public anyway, but I bet if we were to build one in our backyard he’d love to play and run around in it. (So it’s sort of social… demented and sad, but social.”)
The children paraded around the front lawn and ended up back in front of the school. They put up their ponies and stood side-by-side facing the parents. The teachers stood out a little way, facing the children. Then they sang a few songs with hand gestures and lots of “yee haws” and “hoorahs” to God (it’s a Presbyterian Church, so go figure — the lyrics to one of the songs was “And shout hooray to God!”). Seth stood still while every single kid was singing and yelling and doing the hand movements. His friend Tyler was standing next to him and singing his heart out, and a couple of times he looked at Seth a little confused by his behavior. Then Seth pulled his hat down in front of his face. And finally, when it was just about done, one of his teachers went to get him to hold hands in a circle for the grand finale song, and Seth started to cry. She led him to the Director, but I could tell that the Director didn’t know what to tell him. So I crossed that imaginary line and ran through the presentation to get to him.
Poor baby. He was not expecting to have all those people looking at him. He took off his hat and said he wanted to go home. I just hugged him until he could get a hold of himself. I was glad that I was able to get one shot of him with a friend’s camera before the dramatic crash landing. I hope I got it good. We waited for his class to finish and get their pictures taken. He was able to walk back to his classroom and stay for the rest of the day. I had to dash back home and make his lunch, and of course, I threw in a few extra cookies for him. I had to make four trips total to the school today.
Seth and Zack beheaded the pony afterschool.
…and (that’s how my day went today) scene…
Posted on March 8th, 2007 by trish
Filed under: Haley Kids