Emergency C-section

Last week I posted a blog about a second delivery. If I'm going to confess I have to say that I also had a bit of a birth plan. I had envisioned this delivery at University as a very Zen West Coast Namaste type delivery. 

We would arrive and together, unpack quietly, play good music and decorate his room. Every once in a while we would remember his childhood and other family events and laugh. 

There would be lots of hugs and long lingering thoughtful moments of isn't-it-great-that-we-get-to-spend-this-time-together. You know? Zen. Namaste. Birth plan. I know, I know, ridiculous. 

What I got instead was the equivalent of an emergency C-section!! No Zen. No Namaste. Botched birth plan. Emergency c-section. 

This is how it went; first all the cars delivering children to first-year residence would lineup and end up in front of the building. There was a swarm of students assigned to help. Some had painted their body purple top to bottom and were dressed up. They did the wave as the car pulled up!

Every student and their family was greeted with concert loud music and the wave. Yes, they did the wave. Once the car door opened the crowd started chanting "Drop the kid. Drop the kid. Drop the kid." followed by loud clapping and another chant; this time: "Pop the trunk. Pop the trunk. Pop the trunk." 

Once the trunk was popped stickers were placed on every item and like worker ants the helper students brought everything to the designated room. Three floors up the stairs. It was hot, very very hot, 29°C hot. Up the stairs they would chant, hooter and holler yell and scream "Yay!!!! Welcome to Carleton" 

Once on the hallway they would wait for the student to swipe his or her card key to enter the room while chanting "Swipe the key. Swipe the key. Swipe the key" I have to say it was a little overwhelming. My number one has never been the hoot and holler kind and I kept wondering if they had any students with autism and what they would do with all the stimuli. 

This went on all day. Now imagine eight floors with, I didn't count but at least 20 rooms per floor if not more and EVERY student was greeted in the same manner. Needless to say, it was loud. Not Zen but more like every single crazy University movie you ever saw. 

However, this crazy university movie had its special "modern" moments. First of all every kid picked up their first year "swag" bag and it included condoms. Every child got a bracelet with the question "Got consent?" printed on it. And when the resident assistant introduced himself to us his label identified his "preferred pronouns" he, him, his. His preferred gender very clearly identified. 

I'm back at the hotel now. We didn't have deep touching moments of togetherness. But I did see him take great pride in putting his room together and even ask for my opinion a couple of times. We had a quick lunch. I got a few hugs and I spent some time sitting on his bed NEXT to him before he hurriedly went off to start his frosh events. Enough for now. I'll find time for Zen when I see him next.