Fitting-in Fail (take two)
We have been trying to figure out a good system for getting three kids to two different schools with three different drop-off times each morning. It is difficult enough to figure out the timing of leaving, driving and parking, but my kids have made it even more difficult by forgetting how to focus on getting ready and out the door in the morning.
Why do they think there is time to get out toys and play on school mornings? Just because they’ve done that all summer long does not mean it is okay now.
Thankfully, for my two youngest ones, picking out school clothes is easy. They both wear uniforms of navy bottoms and white tops. We keep all their school clothes separate from their regular clothes. They can pick whatever they want to wear from their school clothes drawer each day. This lessens our stress, our battles and the worries about “fitting in.”
We have the requisite minivan. As much as I dreaded it, I have to say that the minivan has made our lives easier in a lot of ways. We even drive a silver Honda Odyssey which seem to be a dime a dozen around here, but it helps me feel like I fit in with the other moms around here.
At least I did until the other morning. We were rushing out the door down to where our van was parked on the street. As I tried to get the kids to get their shoes and coats on, I heard something that sounded disturbingly like our minivan’s horn honking repeatedly. I tried to push the buttons on my keychain to no avail, so I herded the kids out the door and down the street.
Our minivan’s panic system was indeed going off. And, even more surprising, my husband was there with his car doing nothing to stop the alarm. It turns out that he had left the lights on in the van all night and needed to jump start the van before we could leave. Something happened when he did so to set off the alarm and neither of us could figure out how to get it off.
We all hopped in the van and took off for our first stop, where my daughter catches the bus. Thankfully, the alarm turned off after we started driving, but we knew it was only a matter of time before it started again, thanks to the ominous blinking red light on the dash. My husband madly flipped through the owner’s manual while I high-tailed it to the bus stop.
As we pulled up to my daughter’s bus stop, we saw her bus pulling away. I quickly tried to chase the bus down, flashing my lights at it like a crazy person. Finally, at a stop sign, we caught up to the bus. My husband jumped out of the car to flag down the bus driver, causing the alarm to start up again.
Thankfully, my husband had just discovered that, to turn off the alarm, the key has to be put into the lock on the driver’s side. While he rushed my daughter to the bus, I opened the window, scrabbled to put the key into the lock and disarmed the alarm.
I’m not sure what the two ladies going for a walk that morning thought of us, or, worse, what the bus driver thought about the crazy parents who wouldn’t stop honking their horn at him, but I’m pretty sure we looked more Ma and Pa Kettle than Chicago natives.
It can only get better, right?
photo by Caitlinator
Related posts:
Category: Chicago, Mom Challenges, School
Wow sounds like a crazy morning!! We have the same issues with the boys wanting to have time to play in the morning and often they do because they wake up at first like but then on the morning when we actually have to wake them up its WW3 explaining they don’t have time that day. I can’t even imagine what it will be like when they are in 2, or eventually 3 different schools!!!