Poor Forest's Wednesday only knocked him further down as far as emotional exhaustion goes. His mom came to the Store and confronted him, and the two of them really got into it, I guess. He didn't get to finish things peacefully with her, because his dad showed up, and his parents went outside to discuss things between themselves, pretty much leaving the poor guy hanging. Of course all this time he was feeling bad, too, because there's only one other daytime worker at the store, and she was dealing with a line at the window and no help.
He came home looking ready to fall to peices, but Kirstin had to get ready for her concert, and then we all had to be at the auditorium by 6:15 PM. We ended up rushing out the door, eating in the car, and getting there just in time; except that Kirstin was still eating and Forest was dead asleep.
I was hopeful that food would settle Kirstin down, and sleep might be enough to get Forest through the next few hours, so I left Kirstin in charge, told her to wake Forest when she was done eating, and come inside.
I really wasn't feeling up to the challenge myself, however I was soon standing in a room with 80 noisy choir kids (grades 3 and 4). They were all very excited, and we had a half hour to wait before my mom would be ready to rehearse with them. This time I had a plan, though. I thought about it all day. What can I do with 80 kids so that they don't drive me insane with their monkeylike behavior? I learned at Christmas time that shouting over them only makes them louder, and that jumping up and down doesn't get their attention. I also learned that 2 seconds of unoccupied time is a large enough window for several of them to start acting up, and me to lose control utterly.
In my ponderings, I realized that they were all in a choir they auditioned for, and therefore they must like to sing, right?
So at 6:30 on the nose I started with physical and vocal warmups, as much as I could. I quickly learned that complex theatre warmups were over their heads, and started on the Mee-may-mah-moh-moos. Happily Mrs. Harrington was already there manning the piano, and she helped me out with it.
After the 'my dog walks round the blocks' and 'abcd' exercises, I ran out of warmups, and realized that mom had probably taught them some of the songs I remember from when I was little. So we sang 'Row, Row, Row your boat' in a round. Still no mom. So we sang all 4 verses of 'Little Bunny Foo Foo'. Still no mom. One of the kids requested a song called 'Chocolate'. It was in their repertoire for the night, and I would rather have waited for my mom to do it, but I realized that she was quickly running out of time, and they might not otherwise have a chance to practice it, so even though I didn't know it we sang 'Chocolate'.
Thank heavens, during that my mom showed up. Phew. Soon Forest and I were dismissed until concert time. We sat in the quiet hallway, both completely whipped; but I think he was worse off than I was. An honors choir concert is no place to be when you're completely exhausted. I know all he wanted to do was go home and hide under the covers, but I was really glad he stayed. He's such a good guy, and a real trooper.
The concert was lovely, Kirstin did a fine job, and we only had to put the smack down on about half a dozen kids who misbehaved. Forest's good a smack-putting, and I'm no slacker at it myself. Heck, part of my job is to take down adults, kids are no problem compared to adults.
At 9 PM we were rolling out of the lot, and Forest was groaning that he didn't want to go to the movies with Bridget. He wanted to stay home, get what comfort he could from me, and likely go to bed very early. Still, he dragged himself out the door, and I watched him go like the good grownup that I am. After the level of emotional crap we've been through together in the past couple of days, neither one of us wanted to worry about the situation with Bridget. We'll deal with that some other time, when we're not both fried. Besides, it was pretty comforting to me that he went to the movie with not a minute to spare before screentime, and came straight home afterward. I wasn't left to wonder what was going on or anything like that.
I was a complete vegetable while he was gone, and watched the season finale for Law and Order, then talked to Wayne on the phone for over an hour. When Forest came home we held each other up for a few minutes with hugs, and were asleep in no time; except that Forest was awake for a couple of hours in the middle of the night. I really wish he could consistently sleep at least 6 straight hours. It makes me worry.
I have a theory, by the way, on why Kirstin is so hard on him sometimes. She is loving and sweet to him one minute, and then spiteful and nasty the next. I think she's testing him; doing her worst to see if he will run away from her. I don't think it's a conscious thing, but it's what I suspect is going on, anyway. I hope it will be some comfort for him when I suggest it.
