I Like the Ceiling Here

"I like the ceiling here. I wish I could touch it. It looks so soft. Like a cloud," said one of the second graders in my assigned group as we sat on the floor of the Museum of Science. They each gazed upward at the rough acoustic ceiling and chewed contemplatively on their snacks, each one of which I found mystifying: Greta eats her orange like an apple? Anna is given chocolate cookies with a frosting dip at 10am? And what is Iris even eating?

An hour earlier, I'd been waiting in the lobby for these kids to arrive. I'd been very proud of myself for being on time. Extremely proud. Other chaperones hugged me as I waved enthusiastically at them. "It's so nice to see you!" I'd exclaimed. "I know, this is the only time we get to hang out!" said one friend, looking gorgeous and energized. I tried not to think about my paint-spattered purple sneakers and instead remained grateful I had the presence of mind to apply makeup that morning. Later I'd see her, almost as frayed and wilted as I was, beaten down by chaperoning second-graders. "These boys make me realize how not-very 'Boy' my Taylor ever was," she said, referring to the days before her son began the transition to becoming her oldest daughter. "I have a streak of rebellion in my group," I explained.  "I think they've slowly turned against me." "I don't have that, just, they have to be like this all the time." Here she mimicked a crazed mime.

"Is Anna giving you a hard time?" asked my daughter's teacher at one point, as I tried to keep my two eyes on four girls at once. "Well," I began, as if to blame myself somehow, and then, "Yes." She shot off for a talk with the offender. But I'm not sure what she could have said.

During the planetarium show, Anna stood, taking Iris's arm, and said, "I'm ready to go now." "No, honey," I explained, "we're staying here till the end." She sat back down and gave Iris instructions to sit and stay.

At the Super Cold Science show, Anna grew restless after about two and a half minutes. "Can we go now?"  She was poised, with her little minion Iris at her side. I looked at my phone. "We can go in seventeen and a half minutes, when the show ends."

At the Lightening show, which Anna begged to go to, against Greta's wishes ("Majority rules" intoned the teacher's voice in my head), Anna turned to me. "I'm kind of scared," she said. "Aw," I said. I rubbed her back. Meanwhile my daughter was so excited she'd positioned herself far away from our group, by the edge of the stage. "No one gets hurt. It's all OK." Then she got bored. "Can we go now?"

I noticed other things too. My little girl was so frisky, funny and silly. But she played by herself. She had friends, yes, people who liked her, who went out of their way to include her, but she was very happy on her own. She didn't become anyone's follower. She didn't even sing bad songs, although she did chortle a lot. It wasn't that she was so good, or so anti-social. She was just curious and alive and confident. Perhaps, at times, unwilling to insert herself into the group agenda. And, some of her interactions reminded me of my own - directing and narrating as much as possible, whether or not her subjects were willing. It all made my heart fond, and she has a teacher who makes me less anxious about it.

At lunch I sat down with the kids instead of the chaperones. I felt weird about it but less weird than if I didn't sit with the kids. We started with genial discussion of what sandwiches we had, whether or not we like salami, so on and so forth, and somehow by the end of the lunch period they were singing "Jingle bells, jingle bells, the snow is so red, I must be dead, I think I've lost half my head" directly into my shocked ears while making rabbit ears and unicorn horns on my head with their hands while the other chaperones pointed and laughed from a safe distance. "Do any of you have any self-control?" asked the teacher of the students, who love her but looked only briefly chastened. I wondered if maybe she was addressing me.

After five hours had passed, kids were finding coats and loading themselves onto buses.  I started talking to the dad of my daughter's friend. A fellow mom walked up to us, tossed her hair and kicked in flirting. I slipped away from the charged chat of a police sergeant and an Army vet, remembering they both grew up here. There's a level of history and sibling-hood that I can't engage in.

I'm used to being an outsider, I somehow was born that way. Maybe it came with the name. But in a lot of ways I feel like I belong in this town. People have the same struggles, worries, and silences that I do. We all get the working parent thing. We're all exhausted to have a day at the museum. We all wouldn't have it any other way.