Meet the teacher

Deaglan's teachers are like an old married couple.

You know how there's always the husband who doesn't say much, sort of nods, smiles, shifts uncomfortably? And the wife who apologetically makes up for the husband's one word answers by offering beautiful flowing sentences full of information, even if you didn't ask?

Or is that just me and Shaune?

At Meet the Teacher Night a few hours ago, the gushing lovely wife told me that our son was sweet, agreeable and the youngest one in their class. (He was born Christmas Eve) He gets tired in the afternoons she said, picks an activity that requires low energy. Today he built a birdhouse with blocks.

Then she explained with great detail how they'd constructed the reading cubby, how she had remnants leftover from when they got new carpet last year, but then a few months ago at Dollarama, the one on Wellington, she noticed that they had peel-and-stick carpet tiles, so she replaced them with those, but did I notice how the edges were coming undone?

And the reserved brief husband-ish one, well, she smiled and nodded, stood close to an exit.

Naveen plowed through the room tiny-tornado-like, stopping to throw down yogurt containers full of crayons,  empty out baskets of doo-dads, rip pictures the kids had drawn off the walls when he could reach them.

And I was overdressed and sweating, still in my work clothes, a scarf accessorizing my dress; carrying my oversized bag, Deaglan's backpack, the kid's jackets and a family pack of pre-ordered Swiss Chalet meals that none of us had had time to eat.

Shaune just walked in a minute ago and asked hopefully if it had gone okay even without him. He works late a few nights a week and had forgotten to book the night off for Meet the Teacher.

I'd get all chatty and wife-ish but I'm beat.

I'm not going to bother explaining to him that while we were in the lunch room with all the other families, me overdressed and melting, opening our dinners, Naveen was running around all wild, grabbing what he could from other families' dinner tables, dipping his grubby (yet adorable) little fingers into their Chalet sauces within his reach.

I don't have it in me to tell him how after we'd waited in line almost twenty minutes to get our pre-ordered Swiss Chalet, found a seat, and were just about ready to eat, Deaglan suddenly had to pee.  And then when we finally made our way back from the other end of the school, having left my purse, the food, and even my scarf with  a room full of strangers, after I'd set out each kid's food, Deaglan announced quite proudly that now he had to poop!

I won't explain to him that I'd been operating all day from the strong belief  it was Thursday.