Saturday, should it be fine, is school Sports Day. I am looking forward to it. I enjoy it, maybe more so than the chicklets. Lunch is always really good, that’s incentive enough for me.
The 5th and 6th graders always do a big show called kumitatte taiso.
Basically, they start off doing a gymnastic feat by themselves. ( They all have to do the same thing.)
Then they make a pair and the pair performs, then a group of three and so on and so on. It’s always rather spectacular, and I am always impressed with what they manage to get 200 kids to do, synchronised of course. every move goes to the peep of a whistle.
The grand finale is where they are in groups of 10 or so and they make a human pyramid. Looks good.
Somehow, young Kevvers is going to be the man on the very top. I think they pick the lightest kids. they certainly don’t pick the most co-ordinated ones. Kev regularly trips over thin air.
When he was 5, he tripped over thin air, landed on his elbow and somehow split his chin open.
When he was 7 he tripped over thin air, landed on his bum and gave himself a concussion and an overnight stay in hospital.
When he was 8, he tripped over that same thin air, banged the top of his head on something and his tooth flew out.
He couldn’t skip, we had to pretend that the Basil Fawlty gait was actually ‘real’ skipping and the other kids flitting around like Follyfoot Farm were the ones getting it wrong.
So Saturday could be interesting. He came home today with a cold compress on his neck and a bruise on his bum where he had fallen off 3 flights of people.
Still, he is excited about it, he is enjoying it and that’s what counts.
So Saturday, can we have fine weather, can we all enjoy our bento, and can we not have to go to the emergency room. That’s all I ask.
Miss Behaving 
Is it too late to invest in a crash helmet, elbow and knee pads, a kevlar body jacket and motorcycle leathers for the wee lad…?
Do the parents compete as they used to in the UK schools ? I used to watch from behind my hands praying my mother ( who was classed as geriatric at 45) wouldnt join in….I have this lovely picture in my mind of the ‘Parents Pyramid’ with Miss Behaving balancing gracefully at the top with a huge ” tttaaaadaaaaa” …do post photos !!
Oh dear god.I always suppose its adds that extra element of excitement to the day.As if you need it.Getting up at the crack of dawn to make bentos is exciting(?!) enough for me.
Wishing Kev all the best!
Steve, I am fashioning a cottonwool suit as we speak. 😉
Marianne, when they were all little it was quite stressful but as of this year only the boys are in, so it’s just me and The Man ( who can go afterall) sitting in the camping chairs, trying not to eat the ebi fry before lunchtime.
Withering. Parents do indeed participate. 2 parents from each class, same thing every year, we always volunteer hoping that everyone will notice and we’ll escape all the other silliness they expect us to do. We roll and enormous ball around a flag.
One year I got the vocab wrong and volunteered for ‘the sperm’ race.
Sheesh! I am only on the third sport’s festival for the first child and I am already so totally over it. And right now they only last a half day (kindy you know.) How do you manage to be anything remotely excited?
I am now one of those parents sitting in the way back distance in a camp chair drinking “Mommy’s Happy Juice” from a Hello Kitty thermos. And bentos…isn’t that what the heck Lawsons and 7-11 are for? Just repackage the stupid things in your own box and you are golden is my motto.
I think for me, I have come to love it, and man I have come so far since my first one, 13 years ago when I bought KFC on the way… because I have been at our current school for 8 years, I know SOOOO many people, and the way it works , the points, the teams, the divisions, I finally GET IT, I get how it works. I love how much my kids get into it. I will post more on that tomorrow. But I really so enjoy the day and am a little sad, that if our transfer plans go ahead we don’t have many left. I know I am frickin weirdo!!!!