Thursday, September 7, 2017

Awkward Mom vs. Lunch Duty

Here's the thing, a lot of parenting foes are tackled solo. You surround yourself with friends, sidekicks, partners, but in the middle of the night, it's you and Colic throwing down until one of you emerges victorious. And exhausted.  La Leche totally has your back, but Baby-Won't-Latch is gonna have you doing all the heavy lifting. Dropping your first child off at Kindergarten is surrounded in hoopla and support, but when you get behind the wheel of your car, after all the confetti and chaos, it's just you and Mom Guilt, duking it out, until you give up. Or get home. Or let Chocolate tag in. Point is, most of moming is Batmanesque; brooding dark journeys into the inner alleys of your tormented soul. With penguins.

However, Lunch Duty is no place for lone wolves and it is not time to deal with your inner demons or daddy issues. Lunch Duty is no B list villain and she holds her own with the big dogs; right on up there with The Riddler, Magneto, PTA Meeting. Perhaps she's not quite the level of Lex Luther or Potty Training, but she is nothing to attempt lightly or alone. Lunch Duty is not just your kid. Not a friend over on a playdate. Not even a birthday party at Chuck E Cheese. No. Lunch Duty is your kid. And that kid. And those kids. And more kids. And they are all moving. And there's ketchup packets and corn. And milk cartons and juice boxes and those fruit cups that require the grip strength of an America Ninja Warrior to open. And girl drama. And food fights. And somehow more kids. And syrup on French Toast Stick day. Lunch Duty is a gosh darn alien invasion and nothing less than the Avengers is taking that down.

Lucky for you, you happen to be part of the Avengers. You didn't know that? Oh, my sweet fellow parent. Look around! You are surrounded by fellow superheros; Lunch Staff, Janitors, Teachers, Dads, Moms. The persuasive power in that lunch room is enough to bring about world peace. Or get a 5-year-old to tie his shoes. There is massive ability in here and the moment those kids arrive, it's gonna spin itself into beautiful crystal precision, with you leading the left flank.

Schools do lunch different ways; cafeteria, at desks, shifts, all at once, throwing popcorn at them in the hopes they all go away. That last one might just be the home-schoolers, I'm not sure, but, point is, there is endless variety with school lunch. At the Supers' school, they do lunch in the cafeteria, in shifts that consist of three grades at a time. They mix them up a bit, but for my purposes, which are some clarity but mostly dramatic tension, I'll be telling you about them in oldest to youngest age order.

Lunch Duty with 6th, 7th, and 8th graders is a small scale alien invasion. You might not even know you are being invaded. These aliens are well organized and mysterious; you will have no idea what their true aims are but they are definitely going to achieve them. Quietly and with minimal fuss. Whole social structures rise and collapse and phoenix back up during this lunch period and you will not know about any of it. You may hear rumors about it next week, when it's news as old as the fall of Rome, but aliens this experienced aren't gonna give much away. Lotta whispering and side-eye going on here. Frankly, it's a good warm-up for your Avengers team; a couple pointed glares at the napkins on the floor, a word or two about the chips that are crumbing all over the table, some sarcastic comments, and the room is clean and everyone is heading out to recess. They are a well-organized machine of superiority and sass, but where do you think they learned that? We may be old but we are not dead; hormonal, humorless preteens are a cakewalk compared to what is coming.

3rd, 4th, and 5th are the worst of both worlds really; you've got crushes and crumbs here. They are starting to work the gossip mill, but they can't always work their cheese stick wrappers. Your Avengers team needs to be ready for anything because this alien invasion isn't quite sure what it wants. It's gonna be disjointed and disgruntled and downright dirty. Get ready to break up fights; actual ones about stolen Twinkies and the far worse ones that hurtful 10-year-old girls can cause merely by sitting with a different friend today. Prepare for the occasional food fight. Work on your shut-up-glare because you don't want to sink to their level and tell them to actually shut up but, believe me, you are gonna want them to shut up. Astronomical noise, and most of it about absolutely nothing. Let the teachers take the lead here, they have amazingly inventive ways to produce silence; back them up and look suitably serious. The last thing you ever want to do with this age group is crack a smile; if they think what they are doing is amusing, they are never, ever, going to stop doing it. So, even if the next coming of George Carlin is up in here, don't laugh. Bite your lip if you have to. Dogs can sense fear, but kids can sense inconsistency. This is a chaotic alien invasion, use that to your advantage; divide and conquer. They're inexperienced and confused and, most importantly, open to change. They are still susceptible to a gentle nudge toward the kid sitting alone or a head nod toward the juice box on the floor. Don't forget that they are still interested in your approval. Praise works wonders with these aliens; we might just assimilate them yet.

Your Avengers are either exhausted or flying high, depending on how the 3rd, 4th, and 5th period went, and neither is great because here come the babies. Lunch Duty with 2nd, 1st, and Kindergarten is a nuclear annihilation kind of alien invasion. There will be no cooperation or coming in peace; these aliens just want to watch the world burn. Your team has got to be everywhere at once; half these kids are still getting used to eating with forks. Opening milk cartons, ketchup packages. Reminding them that napkins exist. There's usually one or two that try to eat something that is decidedly not food. Someone misses his mom. Someone decides to do a cartwheel and shows the whole cafeteria her underwear. There's sandwich envy. Someone throws away her whole lunch, including the lunch box. Someone loses her glasses. Where'd that kickball come from?! What's that smell? Whose sweater is this? Stop using that unclaimed sweater as a napkin! Someone calls someone a name. There are tears. And now we have vomit. He has to go to the bathroom. She has to go to the bathroom. Everyone has to go to the bathroom. Now, you have to go to the bathroom. Which playground is recess on today? Wanna hear a joke? Why do I have to eat peas? Where do peas come from? Why are peas green? 800 more questions about peas. And all the untied shoes.

It's do or die time, and you will do. You won't notice how amazing you are until it's over, but you are amazing. The lunch staff will achieve the impossible feats of getting 5-year-olds to try green beans and hold trays horizontally. The teachers' endless patience will rub off and you will smile during 18 stories that have no discernible characters, plots, or point. You will open 2 ketchup packets with one hand, while opening a milk in the other, plus sooth a homesick 1st grader and list all 8 planets in order from the sun, throwing in Pluto at the end, to check who's paying attention. You will tie so many shoes that you can do it without looking, which you will have to do because you are urging a Kindergartener to please get down from there. It will be epic.

And that's the thing about alien invasions and lunch duties and hurricanes and human crises; they are epic.  But they are only epic because people just turn into the Avengers. Don't think about it. Don't plan it. Just calmly and confidently take care of, well, everything. Every last one of you is impressive and amazing in your own right and during your own battles, but give humans a national disaster, or a room full of children to feed, and folks come together in ways that you only though John Woo could choreograph. It's beautiful. And messy. And exactly like life.

Avengers Assemble! 
(Sign up for Lunch Duty today.) 

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