It was a catalogue of small things coming together for the various little Lawrences that resulted in various levels of angst yesterday after school.
Rupert arrived in Dramaland immediately after the end of school and waited patiently while I cheerily scolded a year seven girl for committing that most terrible of crimes: wearing trainers in the corridor. She left having learned the error of her ways and then I set about tackling Rupert, who was also be-trainered. All I got was a "But Daddy" and a slightly tearful looking boy huffed off down the corridor, mumbling something about CCAs, and out of Dramaland. This was unlike his usually cheerful self so after sorting out those end of day things that teachers have to do I set off to meet the lad in our appointed meeting place, the primary library.
Here I discovered exactly what had made him upset. He had opted to take part in a newspaper writing co-curricular activity (CCA) and it turned out that it had been cancelled due to lack of numbers. There had apparently been only one student who had chosen to do it, no prizes for guessing who that year five boy was. It was 3.10pm by the time Rupert told me all about this so we decided to use the twenty minutes before meeting Trixie, also in the primary library, to have a cheering up drink. That involved walking out of school to 7-11 and Rupert selecting a horrendous smelling pot of green frozen gunge that was called, rather hopefully, "Tropical Slush." He thought it was great and sucked away at it while I drank a hot chocolate and together we put the world to rights.
Soon, with our chosen drinks inside us, we thought it would be a good idea to see if there were any alternative CCAs for the same time and so trogged back into school to meet the marvellous Mr Assistant CCAs. After much humming and ha-ing, as well careful deliberation, Rupert decided that a science club would be just the thing for him and so Mr Assistant CCAs enrolled Rupert into it. Slightly delayed, but feeling like a job had been well done we went back to the primary library, at 3.40pm, to collect Trixie, as well as rendezvous with Edwin.
Rupert and I entered the library and within moments had a small, tearful blonde thing, aka Trixie, launch herself at me, clinging on for dear life whimpering "Daddy I thought you'd gone without me." Apparently the staff on duty in the library had signed Rupert out when he and I had gone off to have our cheering up drinks and had told Trixie that Rupert had gone when she came in. Trixie had put two and two together and made tears. After much reassurance and explaining she calmed down and then moved onto to her second mini-crisis. Her teacher had changed some of the groupings around and she had to sit next to X and "X works slower than me and I know I am slow and I don't want to get into trouble for going even slower and he doesn't do things quickly enough and messes around and I don't like sitting next to X and why can't I sit next to E because she is my friend not X ........" I was not sure which was the bigger disaster for poor Trixie. Fortunately a good listen, more cuddles, lots of reassurance and certainly no horrendous smelling green gunge, seemed to go someway to solving some of the problems.
That left two out of the three small Lawrences a little more cheerful, but by 3.55pm, 25 minutes after his CCA had finished, Edwin had not arrived. Fearing more tears I braced myself. The great man finally sauntered in to the primary library, one of two possible pre-arranged meeting places with a "What are you doing here?" look on his face. He had apparently forgotten that if I was not waiting him for him after his CCA then he should go to the primary library. Instead he had gone to Dramaland, not found me there, spent ten minutes considering the world while on the toilet, ambled around looking vaguely for me before remembering the carefully planned arrangement.
It was quite nice to all get home.