Natty Bumpercar: I'm not saying that my house is a disaster, a
disaster area, but a a FEMA trailer did just pull up in our
driveway. It's it's pretty, it's pretty messy, pretty, pretty
bad, pretty. It's been raining a lot the children go out of the
house, into the house, out of the house, into the house,
sometimes out of the back door around into the front door.
Sometimes if it's not raining in, you're like, Oh, well, at
least we're not gonna have muddy footprints. They'll run out
there, they'll jump in our it's not even a pool. It's a it's a
puddle, we'll jump in the puddle. And then they'll run
back in. And when it's when it's that, then they're also wearing
a lot of wet clothes. And so as they're running with muddy feet,
they're also just just throwing their clothes all around the
house shirts are hanging on lamps. There's a bathing suit
center just you know, just been tossed wherever they land.
Towels. Someone did last week, we had a day where we went
through 800 towels. Now we don't have 100 towels in our house,
you know, but we have, we just keep we would keep washing them
and drying them over and over. It was just this constant cycle.
It was like when they paint bridges, they start at one end
of the bridge and they start painting. And then by the time
they get to the other side of the bridge, then they know it's
time to go back to the beginning again, because that's how long
it takes evidently, and so it's just this constant cycle. And
that's how we were with towels. And then they're like, oh, I
want to take a shower. I'm like, Oh my gosh, you just came in
from the pool. You just came in from rain. Why do you? Why? Why
do you need to spread more moisture around my house? It's
too much the and you know they like to take they'll take baths,
and then they throw toys in the bathtub. And so then you can't
go and take a shower yourself? Because it's become a Toy Bin.
Ben have have wet toys. I know. I sound like I'm complaining a
lot. Oh, that's because I am. Here's the thing, though. We're
heading into summer school is over.
The younger one just moved from fourth grade and fifth grade.
They had something called a promotion. You've been promoted.
Congratulations. Did I get a raise? No. Did I get a corner
office? No, of course not. You didn't get a corner office. But
you got a promotion? Do I get to wear a mortar? And pestle
whatever the thing that a little the hat. And wait morning? I
don't know, the I get to wear a cape. So I get sometimes people
are dragging the little ropes like the go round. You know like
that. Say something? I did what? No. You're just going to go up.
You're going to wear whatever you're going to wear. We have no
no say in that. We're not going to control it. We're not going
to, you know, send any anything home to your parents any kind of
direction like, hey, it might be nice if you wear this No, no.
We're just going to throw caution to the wind and you'll
show up wearing whatever you want to show up wearing. And
that's fine. And then you're going to stand up in the gym in
front of all your parents and your you know, your aunts and
uncles and siblings and grandparents and just all these
people and you know, you're we're gonna say sweet things.
You're gonna sing a sweet song.
You're gonna make people cry. That's what that's what you're
here.
I bet that was the pep talk that they gave them before they came
into the gym. They were like alright, fourth graders. Let's
gather round, gather round. All right. Do you know why we're
here today? And one kid was like promotion? And she was like, No,
well, yeah, but no reason we're here today is to make people
cry. Make them sad. Make them think about how you used to be
tiny. Now you're less tiny, but she's still kind of tiny. But
you're definitely on the track of less tiny. And they're like
what she's like, Ah, don't worry about all that. You know, she's
at a whiteboard. Like drawing it out with a marker. We think we
end up having to do the erasing thing where it doesn't really
erase and then asking someone for the spray bottle so she can
spray and then she doesn't have a napkin to wipe it off with.
It's just a whole thing. And so you know That's what they that
was their goal. And I'm going to tell you right here right now,
they did not succeed with me. I thought I was I was a goner, I
went into this place, I was feeling a little tightness in
the throat, a little tightness in the chest. Felt like the air
was really dry. Uh huh. I'm not gonna make it. I'm gonna can
make it. But then I did the thing. And it was all so fast.
That it was like a whirlwind. And I was just like, I'm okay.
I'm fine. I serve this is I did it. I made it through the
promotion. I feel like I should get a promotion myself for being
the parent that didn't cry. I don't know. Or maybe I could
just get an accolade for that. Problem was, that was one of the
days. The next day, they do something called a clap out.
What is a clap out? You're probably wondering, well, the
entire school from pre K, K, first, second, third, all of the
teachers, they lined the hallways. And at the front door
of the school, all of the parents are all in a big mob.
And you can hear it's coming through the schools are
clapping, it's wave of clapping. And I brought a bubble machine
and I put it by the front door because nothing says a clap out
like a bubble machine to me. And I had the bubbles going and then
you hear this just wave of clapping coming. And then they
they are they come out of the school. But there's no like
pause. Again. It happened so quickly. That they they came out
and then they just ran to the to the left. And yeah, it was just
like, oh, okay, my emotions don't work that fast anymore.
Like maybe when I was younger, and I have less control of the
emotions, but now you know, if I'm gonna get I'm, it's gonna
take a while for me to crank up the emotion machine. You know,
to really, I gotta I gotta be really ready. You know? So it
takes me it takes a lot for me to get angry or sad or whatever,
or, or happy for that matter. But yeah, so this moves so
fasten, it didn't happen. And we immediately had to get in the
car. After this clap out. And you know, we're high fiving
people or patting people on the shoulder, congratulations, you
know, you did it, parents. Good job. But then we had to get in
the car and drive 40 minutes to the other kids school. Now, mind
you, this clap out started at 1230. Right. And we were there
for about 1015 minutes. The other child had an award
ceremony that was supposed to start at one o'clock. And he's
about 40 minutes away. And my kid was like, in the car. He was
like, What time is it start one o'clock? Well, how's this gonna
work? I you know what, we're just in the car. We're gonna get
down there. When we get down there. We're gonna do our best.
Okay, but you realize it's 1245 now and yeah, I can see the
clock. And I'm just gonna keep on driving. I'm going to get
down there as quick as I can, you know, and hope hope that we
get to see the ceremony hope that we get to see him win an
award. And the award. Here's how it worked. We got an email that
said, Hey, there's this award ceremony. On this day at this
time. Please come your child has been selected to win one of the
awards, which is very exciting. You know, very great. But that's
all the information you have. So the grandparents actually came
down, they drove down to the award ceremony. They got there
before us saved us a couple of seats. And we managed to get
there at 111. So it took us round 27 minutes. And so there
was no traffic. Everything moved very quickly, very smoothly.
Like maybe the quickest trip I've ever had to get down there.
I wasn't even speeding because I'm no speeder. No, no, no, no,
no, no, I'm a law abiding bumper car. But we got there. And we we
checked in. Then we ran down we got to the the auditorium. And
it was full of people they had just given their first award.
And we were given a little what do they call the pamphlets,
whatever, you know, like the thing you look through, and it
tells you what's going to happen and when it's going to happen.
And what we don't we had Miss Just the the opening speech, you
know, like the Pledge of Allegiance, like we had missed
all the things that happened before the awards. So it worked
out perfectly like we came in, ready for awards. The first one
was art. And you know, he didn't win. He didn't win that one. All
right, you know, so then you're going through and you know,
there's Next up, I think we were in reading and writing. And,
okay. All right. Nope, you didn't win that one. Okay. And I
want to film this. I want to get this on camera. All right. Math.
Now, it's not math. Science. No, probably not gonna be science
history. No, no, no, no, no. It's not going to be history.
Okay, you know, we're working our way down the list here. The
next one was PE, physical education. And he's always he's
the, the teachers are always like, Oh, he's so good in PE so
you know, he loves loves it. And he only tell that's my favorite
class. I'm like, All right. Well, that's, it's really just
playtime. But you know, that's fine. Good for you. You have
something that's your favorite. And so I started filming, I was
ready. P. And there they go through these little speeches,
you know, they say, oh, physical education is very important that
they you know, they describe everything and and I'm filming
the whole thing. And they go, you know, this next student and
middle school, well, she and I was just like, alright, well,
let's stop filming that one. That's not the one. And then
you're starting to get down to where we did. So P E, and then
we did music. And then the only things that were left were
homework, attendance, and then there were four things at the
bottom, which were like, character, whatever, like, you
know, stuff like that community service. So I was like, alright,
you know, I've got like six more, you know, they told us to
come down here. And they did homework, and I didn't even film
it. Because I was like, No, that's not going to be it, which
is fine. And then they did attendance. I looked at my wife
and I was kind of shrugged. And she was like, I don't know. And
you know, I started filming. And they go through this four minute
speech about how important attendance is and it's the
backbone of your education. And then then they they called my
kid's name. He won an award for attendance. We came down we
rushed down for that. It was great.