As it was a Halloween dance, that meant costumes were in order. Luckily the R.A. is not fussy about his costume and for the past 3 years he has worn the same Thomas the Tank Engine costume. A benefit of his crappy diet is that due to lack of any nutritional value the R.A. has not grown much and the costume still fits. Of course, since we foolishly assumed the R.A. would acquiesce to the Thomas costume, he refused to wear it. My husband had purchased a cheap witch's hat for me which the R.A. commandeered. Costume confusion sorted out, we were off to the dance. Apparently my husband has gotten attached to the Thomas costume because he wore it or rather draped it around his own neck. He also brought a spare one in case the R.A. changed his mind once we got there.
It was nice to attend a function where nobody shot looks that said, Can't they do something about that kid? or stared pointedly with a good degree of hostility. In that sense it was relaxing. I had no worries about getting into it with anybody. When we got home my mother asked if we got to talk to any other families. No, because nobody had any time for talk as we were all trying desperately to keep our children from engaging in inappropriate and/or destructive behavior. Not that any of the children were acting up with each other or even against each other - that's hard to do when they don't even make any eye contact with each other: Are you yowling at me? Do I amuse you? No? Are you yowling at him? At her? Me? Him? Oh, that bowl of carrot sticks. My bad. Since there was a lot of noise due to chatter/yowling and loud music, the kids were a teensy bit overly stimulated and spent the dance racing around and yowling as if we had given them kegs of cappuccino prior to the event. We parents spent most of the time chasing our children in a futile attempt to keep them from knocking things over or crashing into each other. Next year we need to load the parents up on cappuccino before the dance so that we can keep up. My mother thinks we should do it as a fundraising activity.
The R.A. had an absolute ball as long as it wasn't expected that he engage in anything party related or party appropriate. He spent much of his time doing suicides across the room regardless of any poor sap that was in his direct sprinting line. Parents and staff knew to step aside but his fellow students were too busy doing their own things to move and we did have a couple of collisions. The grownups apologized to each other profusely. The children were too keyed up to notice that they were bounced to the floor, considering it only a slight pause in their manic activities.
All that careening around the room did warrant some breaks. Despite the many empty chairs that ringed the room, the R.A. ignored them, instead becoming quickly enamoured of a large, tall, oblong pumpkin whose intended purpose was as a target in a ring toss game (thankfully not currently being played). This, the R.A. attempted to use as a chair, despite its large and protruding stem on top. He tried sitting on it several times even though the stem was too big to allow a comfortable sitting space. After each failed attempt, which resulted in the R.A. sliding off, he would charge the pumpkin, caterwalling in fury that the pumpkin would not allow him to sit. One pumpkin-R.A. exchange was so heated that the R.A. wrangled with the pumpkin, knocking it over. Initially the R.A. was furious at the pumpkin's insolence and its subsequent refusal to be moved back upright. I even tried to get it to stand up and had no luck. In an attempt to show the defiant pumpkin who was boss, the R.A. lunged at it, laying across it. As he struggled to get up, the R.A. straddled the pumpkin and as he sat there it was like a gong went off in head - Hey! Wait a sec. This is comfortable. I like it! And so a new sitting spot was created. As the pumpkin's original purpose was the focal point of a game, I had to wrestle the R.A. off the pumpkin. By now the poor pumpkin had pretty much been through its paces and would not stay upright. I ended up having to prop it up next to the wall and hoped the ring toss game wasn't an integral part of the success of the dance.
Despite the frantic pace of the event, a good time was had by all. We are all looking forward to the Thanksgiving dance where the R.A. will probably take out a cornucopia.
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