Why Does Everyone Want To Say Hi To Me?

My son’s school had their Spring Expo this evening.   My husband and I went with him and his sister to the event.   It’s a nice time to catch up with parents we don’t get an opportunity to see often with children running amok around the outdoor learning environment as we chatted.   There were activity stations, a drum circle and food from a local restaurant.  

My son was looking forward to the performances he would be doing with the Lower Elementary students, in particular the “solo” he had with five other students in his class.  The songs were cute with hand motions and dance moves.   The “solo” was a few lines spoken into a microphone with his classmates, but he was proud to be selected—which is the important thing.

My daughter was mostly interested in finding the two horizontal bars and playing on them for as long as we’d let her.   The bars are held in place by three large tree trunks into which the bars are inserted. The children enjoy playing on the bars and climbing onto the tops of the sawed-off tree trunks which allows them to stand far taller than the adults.

My daughter was interested in listening to the performances, sitting quietly and paying attention to what was being sung.   She liked listening to Tea’s performance on the violin and she had fun participating in the drum circle.

What was surprising to her was why everyone wanted to say hello to her.   She was at my son’s school for four years, attending less than a year ago.   That’s a long time in the mind and memory of a child however.   As teacher after teacher and old classmate one after another came to greet her and say hello she said to us, “why does everyone want to say hi to me?”  

She’s an anomaly, walking around with a colorful blind cane.   People want to know how she is and say hello because they miss her.   There were parents and teachers who didn’t really know her, but know her story and came over to ask how she’s doing.   These are adults who genuinely care and are interested.   I would give my elevator speech and then answer any additional questions they had.   But it wasn’t the bars and tree trunks, so it wasn’t that interesting to my daughter.

The Big Boy Update:  My son did very well in the performances at Spring Expo tonight.   He knows all the words of the songs, but he still gets a little dazzled by the size of the audience and forgets to sing a lot of the time.   He did do a great job of his solo though.  

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  My daughter had a field trip with her class today to the local hands-on children’s museum.   My husband was one of the chaperones.   She liked having dad there and liked that she was paired up with Layla, one of her favorite classmates.   Hopefully she and Layla will be in the same class next year.