What a Difference a Year Makes

Tonight was the second annual Family Fitness Night at DuckyBoy's school. Last year, we all went, but it was for us a flop. It was overall a great success, but that meant every classroom was crowded and LOUD, as were the gym and the cafeteria.

This year, I marked it on the calendar but didn't mention it to DB. I figured, if he wanted to go, we'd go, but I wasn't even going to bring it up.

When I picked him up tonight, he was very excited about going. So, we came home and ate dinner, worked out the logistics with Dad (who declined to attend this time), and headed back.

Several things were different than last year's experience, but DB is a different kid as well.

The differences in the situation overall were these:

• Purely by accidentally running late, we missed the 15-minute sitting-still introduction in the auditorium (which bored him last year), and arrived at an exciting time when everyone was filing out of there and to the various rooms.
• The gym and cafeteria both had fewer games so were less chaotic.
• DB didn't know who else was going of his friends, so his expectation of hanging out with any of them was low.

Differences in him I saw this year:

• He could handle the noise
• He waited his turn to run under the parachute (I'm sure it helped that he got to sit on it and get spun first!)
• He didn't insist on staying with his friends when we did see them
• He tried a wide variety of activities: parachute, Wii (waiting patiently on line), obstacle course (with just a tiny bit of prompting to stay on line and reassurance he only had to do it once), bowling, even hula hoop!
• He lasted the whole event, an hour, and was disappointed when it was done.
• When we met the gym teacher in the hall, DB thanked him for setting up the event, and told him we were skipping in the hall to get even more fit. A real conversation!

I was skeptical about going tonight, but simply steeled myself to be prepared to leave at any time. Now that it's done, I'm so glad we went.