Fall Fling

It was Fall Fling at Noah's school yesterday. Food and dancing. Basically a big party for children.
"Yo imagine if you were at a party this big like for older kids?" said one older student as we walked outside. I intended to go home but instead we played in the dark, running through the garden following other children at their games. I just trailed Noah and observed.

I did notice a bunch of stuff that is sort of okay when you are a child but becomes against the law when you get bigger.

Kids were basically just play fighting to the music. I actually had to put a stop to this when these bigger older kids were getting out of hand. They could have crushed smaller children or knocked over the speakers on themselves. But nobody wanted to step in and be that parent and the teachers were all at other stations I guess and probably didn't see it. The kids were big but young, and they sort of thought that they just weren't allowed to do that stuff near me.
So eventually I took one of the bigger kids aside and explained in more detail why he could hurt small kids or himself, with much gesturing. (The music was loud.) After that somehow it finally stopped. Sort of.
Noah was crying because he didn't like what I said.

Also this one girl had her shirt off. By girl I mean k-1 or first grade or something like that. I'm all for the free spirit element in JP. But it would have been weird for boys to have their shirts off too in this scenario I think. Maybe she spilled something. But with the "dance" atmosphere and us being in school... I don't know I just wanted to leave before the inevitable  something happened between the fighting or the creaking of something or the lecturing of someone. I guess I'm pretty conservative in my notions about gender and propriety after all. But you would think that I'm not since I am in a gender reversal role myself as a stay at home dad.

But anyway, it's interesting what is okay at a kids party and what would be considered wild and drunken behavior a few years later. The truth is when the really little kids were fighting nobody cared. It was when the kids that were slightly bigger and weighing more started knocking over kids and moving closer to the sound equipment that it became an issue.

Nothing bad actually happened and I became the only person to lecture the WWE participants (Noah included) about how this wasn't a Kung Fu school or a fight club but a dance floor with small children running around with no peripheral vision.

Later on another organizer stepped in on another group but then for some reason stepped back to allow me to regulate. I actually suggested she do it. Maybe she thought I was their parent or something. But I don't care about "rules" or enforcing them. I just don't want heavy equipment to fall on them or the fight to go worse. (they were pulling each others hair.) I think even in a sporting fight in the appropriate environment that behavior would be discouraged.

Well I had had enough but then we went outside to play and stayed until the raffle was drawn. Noah actually won something! A baking set. And Grace is making us pancakes this morning.

On the way home I thought I heard fireworks. It was actually nighttime construction. Proving Noah's story book, "Goodnight, goodnight, construction sight." utterly wrong. This operation was Starting at night. We watched this for about 15 minutes. It was pretty cool.