The breakfast was put on by the PTO for all of the kindergarten parents. And what a nightmare it was. It was scheduled for 9—which I understand because it’s at the beginning of school, and I guess they figured you’d likely be dropping off your kid in person so you’d already be there…? But trying to get there was awful, even though I drove straight there and was in the general vicinity at 8:50.
I was using the GPS because I’d only driven there once, and it took me to the back of the school where there is no parking (only Kiss-and-Ride and bus areas) and all the side streets were packed. I tried to reroute to the front of the school but the GPS wouldn’t do it and I couldn’t figure it out (it’s in a subdivision). I finally figured out how to get there, stupidly assuming that the small parking lot might actually have a space for people STAYING at the school instead of just dropping kids off. Ha. HA HA. There was literally NO parking space there or on any of the side streets for a half-mile radius. And it was already 85 and I was NOT walking that far with Katie and I was already late…so I said screw the breakfast. On the way out, I pulled over to calm down and think—if I waited just a bit longer, a lot of the parents would be done dropping their kids off and I’d hopefully be able to get a closer parking spot. So I waited until 9:15, turned around, and got a spot a block away.
The breakfast was…awkward. People were already at tables and chatting and there was nowhere for me to sit so I just stood there letting Katie play for a few minutes. It was also HOT in there—I asked if they didn’t have A/C and they said yes they did but in apparent Halley tradition the A/C was out the first day. 🙂 But they liked Katie’s school spirit—dressing in black and yellow! 🙂
Then I got us a snack and grabbed a seat and both other people were buried in their phones. Yay. 😐 I chatted for a brief minute with a mom from the pool but she was talking to friends. I hate these kinds of things but I had pushed myself outside of my comfort zone…and it was a bust. Lovely. So we listened to the welcome and the PTO president and I didn’t learn much. Katie was having a ball eating her apple and running back and forth to the stuffed animal area. Afterwards I talked to the PTO president about possibly volunteering a little and she was very nice. Then I saw Katie playing in another section so I went over to grab her and there were some other parents over there. I recognized one set as the parents of the twins in Owen’s class so I chatted with them briefly and they were very nice and we exchanged numbers.
It’s going to be an interesting year.