Meet the Teachers

Last night was open house/meet the teacher night at my children's school. For  the first time I would have more than one teacher and assistant to meet, as we decided to put my twins in different classes this year. As luck would have it, yesterday was an extremely rough day for me. I was on the second day of an all out migraine headache, from which I finally got some relief after my husband made a trip to town expressly to refill my Relpax prescription. (Thanks, hon.)  Anyone who has ever had a migraine and then taken a Relpax can appreciate the condition that I was in, suddenly pain free for the first time in 48 hours, exhausted and now slightly drunk. I arrived at the school with the traveling circus that is now my life, three kids and two enormously heavy bags of school supplies in tow. Scooping up one brown grocery bag of supplies (only one of my bags had handles) I then grabbed the other one while simultaneously attempting to keep my kids from getting run over. Reminding myself that reinforcements were on the way in the form of my husband, I trudged into the school. Naturally, I had parked in front of the school so that I would have to walk at least half a mile to the gym carrying the supplies. It didn't help my feelings when I remembered that there was a parking lot immediately adjacent to the door I needed to go in, or when I saw that it was approximately half full. By the time we all made it to the gym, I was sweating like the proverbial whore in church. I could feel the sweat rolling down the center of my back and into my underwear. As the rows of chairs finally came into view, I was thinking I couldn't remember a time I was more excited to sit down. Heading toward the promised land, I heard an extremely perky voice coming out of a smiling face. "If you'll just sign one of these sheets..." the voice said, and its owner motioned toward a table of sign in sheets. Allow me to remind you of the situation here. Picture me, aggravated and sweating, exhausted and sort of drunk, carrying an extremely heavy shopping bag and balancing an equally heavy one on my hip, with three small very excited kids in tow. I didn't say a word, but the look on my face probably said a lot. I was thinking, "REALLY?" but I'm pretty sure it came across as "Go to hell." (Which was totally and completely unintentional, by the way. It definitely was not the sort of first impression I wanted to make.) She sort of backed up a step and then stammered, "Uh, you can put your stuff down first." I managed a weak smile and a nod before bulldozing my way to the chair that was calling my name. Fortunately, I think I was able to come across as not a complete witch to my kids' teachers. They were thrilled, one mostly because her classroom is in the yellow hallway, which is apparently much more grown up than the red one that  her sister's room is on. Who knew? Anyway, everyone and their brother has offered their opinion on whether we should put the twins in different classes. So here's my story and I'm sticking to it. We are trying to do what is best for each of our girls, even if it means that things are more difficult for their parents from time to time. We want to encourage them to be individuals rather than just part of a set. And for the record, I was an only child. We are totally making this up as we go. But don't tell them that.