Jr. High Music Concerts

Last night Bart and I both went to Tony's concert. As I sat there for almost 90 minutes I had many things going through my mind.

1) Who would ever want to be a middle schooler? I was remembering my years as I watched the gawky, self-conscious boys and the silly equally or maybe more so self-conscious girls and was so glad I never had to do that again. Awful years for me. For everyone I think.

2) Only a complete saint could be a Jr. High Teacher. Ick. Right now we have 3 seventh grade boys and that is more than enough. I cannot imagine standing in front of 30 or 40 of them all day long. Torture if you ask me.

3) My kid fit in. Which is pretty scary. But I think that school events provide good perspective. Sometimes when our kids are annoying we tend to forget that all kids their age are fairly annoying. As I watched all the kids I realized that they all are pretty much acting the same way -- at least in that setting.

4) Bleachers are horribly uncomfortable, especially when you already have cramps and a back ache.

5) It takes a long time to provide a concert when you have to switch back and forth between different choirs. I think we spent half of the concert watching kids move from one set of chairs to another.

6) There are a lot of people who were not raised the way my mama raised me. I could not believe the number of people who just stood up and left when their son/daughter was done with their part of the program. I understand that some of those people might have valid reasons... but it couldn't be that ALL of them had plans at 8:15 on a Thursday night. I was taught that the polite thing to do is to wait until the concert is OVER before you walk out.

7) Tony was glad we were both there. He couldn't say that, of course, but the smile of recognition when I sat down next to Bart and looked up at him was enough. He's on the end in the picture above.

So, #7 makes up for the frustrations of #s 1-6. It was cold out last night and I had to park ... oh it felt like 13 miles from the entrance ... but his smile made it worth the trip. And even though as soon as we got home he started telling me how awful I was, I know that for a couple seconds, I made him smile, just by showing up. And that might just be enough.