When I bring the girls to school in the morning, I bring them to the main entrance.  Audio could wait with some of her classmates by a side entrance, near the parent drop-off spot, close to the street, and then go into the school with the teacher after all the kids have arrived.  We walk right past that area every day.  Dee Dee is old enough to go by herself to the front door and she has done so while I’ve waited with Audio for her teacher and classmates at the door near the street.  But, when it’s cold, we all go to the main entrance of the building so both girls can go inside and warm up as soon as the bell rings. 

At the end of the day, the girls exit the building though the double doors where Audio’s teacher collects children in the morning.  All of the students who walk home or get picked up instead of riding the school bus leave through this exit.  At the start of the year, along with other parents, I stood close to the doors to tell the school staff stationed at the door who I was there to collect.  After a few weeks, the school sent home laminated sheets of pink paper with students’ last names in large letters and first names in a smaller font.  Families with more than one student had both kids’ first names on one sign.  Once we had the signs to show staff, a lot of parents stood back away from the doors and just held up their signs.  Some parents left their signs at home and continued to crowd around the doors to say the name of their kid.  Some parents with signs also crowded around the doors to show staff their sign and say the name of their kid, just to make sure.   

The paved area just outside the double doors is about twelve feet wide and runs twenty feet from the doors to a sidewalk that cuts across the school yard.  From that sidewalk to the sidewalk that runs alongside the road is about another twenty feet.  In the winter, the sidewalk that cuts across the schoolyard is barely wide enough for a parent to walk next to their child.  In the summer, parents can spread out and stand on the grass and wait for their kids.  In the winter, with snow piled up a couple feet high, there is very little room to wait near the exit and less room on the sidewalk it connects to.  Yet, parents still crowd into the sidewalk and the area right outside the doors.   

The crowd of parents standing by the doors leaves little room for the kids coming out of those doors to make their way to the parents who are waiting in their cars or standing by the street, in the plowed-out areas on both sides of the sidewalk.  Last winter and this year, I told the girls that once they come outside, they should look towards the street to find me standing away from the crowd, watching and waiting for them.  I figure that one less body in the way (mine) makes one less obstacle for the kids to face. And it seems that someone plowed out the area near the street for a reason; possibly so parents had a place to stand while waiting for their kids to come out of school. 

Sometimes the girls take a while to come out after the bell sounds.  But, when they do come out, alone or together, they look in my direction and scan the crowd for me.  The trouble is that even if they are together and see me right away, they can’t get to me because of all the parents standing in the way.  And being so small, Audio is at a real disadvantage when it comes to bobbing and weaving through the crowd.  She keeps one eye out for me and one on the shifting walls of bodies that she has to navigate through.   

Dee Dee’s approach is to avoid everyone by ditching Audio and making a break for it through the snow.  As different as their techniques are, they usually arrive where I’m standing at the same time.  Dee Dee takes giant, slow steps to get through the thigh-high snow and Audio serpentines her way through the adult thighs at her eye-level.  Another added element to Audio’s challenge is that some of the parents who stand near me in what I assume is the designated waiting area don’t stay there.   

When some parents don’t see their kid come out of the building right after the bell rings, they march towards the door to find their kid.  So, there aren’t just parents standing in the way, but also moving in the opposite direction of the children trying to escape the school yard.  But, like salmon, the kids always make it to where they need to be.  And, as obnoxious as the obstacle parents are, perhaps they are teaching the kids one last lesson of the day: how to survive and even accomplish your goals while being surrounded by idiots.  To date, I’ve never said anything to any of the obstacle parents.  But I’ve given a lot of perplexed looks that have gone unnoticed.