Why I do it....

You want to know why I volunteer at the school.  Why I am the room mom, the art room helper, the PTA president, the "volunteer of the year" (sorry ladies but if you thought you were winning, I already have the crown)?  You want to know why I walk my child in, eat lunch often and walk my child home?  You want to know why I smile and rarely complain about the hours I put into the place that I send my beautiful little boy 5 days a week for 7 hours a day?

Because my son tells me absolutely nothing about his day.  I can creatively ask in hundreds of ways things he learned, did, or saw.  I can inquire in equally numerous ways about friends, lunch, recess, specials.  He tells me NOTHING.  This year, the teacher has the students color the day based on where the behavior stick landed.  If there were issues, she lets parents know what they were.  This is generally all I know about his day.  Because let me be very clear.... HE TELLS ME NOTHING.  

I can see what he is learning from his homework that we struggle through each night.  Not because he can't do it, but because he doesn't want to.  I make him read to me every night so I know he is learning to read.  He loves notepads so I can see he is writing and he painstakingly will write me notes on rare occasions.  

I do not hear about the small or large things.  I do not hear about the funny or sad.  I do not hear about experiments, activities or books the teacher reads.  I do not hear about the art project or the assembly.  I don't hear about the thing he cut up or drew or wrote. I do not hear about the playground or the naughty trouble or the kind gesture.  I do not hear about your child or the silly things they do.  I hear NOTHING.  Nada.  Zip.  nothing.  

And I will venture a guess that you hear plenty about what your little one did as well as what mine did!  

I volunteer an exhausting number of hours at the school because I can peek in, I can be part of and I can know what he is doing.  I do not do this to hover or to be overbearing.  I do my best to be non-obtrusive.  The theory that he doesn't tell me because he knows I am there is hogwash.... I started going because we were not hearing from him and we needed to know.  

I am there so that we have some place to begin conversations.  I am there so I know names and can ask the specific questions with specific names.  I am there because it is the reality of our home. Espen just does not tell us one single thing about his day.  

Certainly a we may hear something on occasion but it is generally out of context and we have no knowledge to base the information on.  It is just generally very random and at very random times.  He has no back story and once that snippet is said, he moves on and is done.  

It is as if he spends the whole day and then can remember only the last moment.  It is
troubling in many ways but we just know it is who and how he is.  I spend my time catching pieces of his day. Because at the end of his day, I do my best to help him remember some part of it... what he had for lunch, where he played, what word he wrote for a spelling word.  One small detail of recall.  It is important. 

He lives totally in the moment he is in.  He lives fully and completely and then quickly moves past and beyond it.  And yet, he has an incredible memory and with clarity and extreme detail, he can recall the strangest things from the past.  Moments that are not worth remembering he will recall and share completely out of context to what is happening.  But this day... this moment... he has just moved on to the next.  As is his day at school... by the time I see him in the afternoon, he has moved on to that moment with me.  This is our reality.  

And so I volunteer and peep in.  I get a video or photo text on occasion.  I cherish that.  Because as parents, don't we want to know what our children are doing all day, who their peers are, what fun thing that made an impression on them... we want that!

To know.  To know about my child's day.  This is why I do it.  Because it matters.