Tag Archive for: RIde to School

Josh was late for school because I forgot to get gas last night after choir practice.  I didn’t get gas before choir because I was already late for that. The car holds 18 gallons. I put in 17.972 gallons.  So basically, we started the day running on fumes. 

I’m not feeling like Super Mom today.  What’s new?  Although there are some days when I nail it – remember in “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” when Toula Portokalos starts working for her Aunt Voula’s travel agency, and she’s on the phone and computer and zipping around in her rolling chair, just on fire with efficiency and greatness? – most of the time I feel that I don’t nail it.  Maybe I staple it, or just hold it together with Scotch tape. We have duct tape, which would be better, but I don’t know where it is.

Most days, I get up, let the dogs out, feed them, clean up whatever’s in the kitchen, empty the dishwasher, get some laundry going, fix the lunches, give Josh his wake-up call so he can snooze, fix breakfast, throw on some clothes and brush my teeth before we head to school. 

I also put on lipstick and brush my hair.  This is for two reasons: One, because my mom always said, “Don’t leave the house without lipstick.”   Two, because I always have it in the back of my mind: “What if the day goes horribly wrong and there’s a mug shot and it gets printed in the paper?”  At least, I’ll be wearing lipstick and a bra.

I suspect that most people don’t think these things, but who knows, maybe they do. 

lipstick with organizerYesterday was just a bust.  I mentioned that I was late for choir practice, but that was just toward the tail end of the chain of “meh.”  Before that, I had busted my gut to race out to our local charter science high school.  Our older son, Andy, went there, and it is wonderful.  But they have a lottery for kids to get in, and we had been told that the drawings would start very soon.  I scrambled for Josh’s birth certificate, SSN, and a utility bill to show that we actually live where we say we do.  Throughout the day yesterday, I had dragged the multi-page application form from place to place, filling it in whenever I had a few minutes.  Finally, it was done!  I booked to the school before it closed for the day, and the lady at the front desk said that the lottery for Josh’s grade would start September 1 at 7 a.m., and there would be “a line around the parking lot” at that time, so that’s something to look forward to.

Before that, I had spent 15 minutes on hold with the doctor’s office.  All I wanted was to get permission, aka a referral, for my dang annual mammogram. But that would have been too easy.  Although I had seen the doctor several times last year and actually had surgery, that didn’t count.  This woman finally came on the phone and said, “This is Pat.”  Like that’s helpful.  I don’t know who she is, or care, frankly.  No offense to Pat.  “Yes, you were here for some gyn-e things” – I was not familiar with this term; it rhymes with shiny – “but you didn’t get a breast exam.”  So before I can get the mammogram, I have to come in for a documented physical. 

In other words, they are holding my mammogram hostage. 

“Do you still want to do that?”  “Well, yeah,” I said.  I simply can’t wait to see those happy people.

The whole day was like that.  Earlier this week, I saw that an illustrator named Yao Xiao has done a series of illustrations showing how to be more positive by saying, “Thank you,” instead of “I’m sorry.”  For example, instead of “Sorry I’m just rambling,” how much better to say “Thank you for listening.” Or, instead of “Sorry I’m kind of a drag” — “Thank you for spending time with me.”  Xiao figured out that having gratitude and apologizing are a lot alike, but saying thank you makes both parties feel better about themselves. 

So, thank you for listening.  Thanks to my family for putting up with me.  Thanks to my car for not running out of gas.  Thanks to God for a family to take care of, and another day to do it.

Josh was late for school today.  This is only the second time this year, so that’s really good for us.  Usually he gets there with as many as one to three minutes to spare.  I hate being late.  And yet, I am often late.  Something always happens.  For one thing, the act of picking up my car keys seems to activate Josh’s colon, so there’s that.  “Why didn’t you go when I asked?”  “I didn’t have to go then!”  “You make me crazy.”  “I can’t when you already are.”  “Hurry up!”  “Start the car, I’ll be right there!”  Once there were cute, happy snails right behind the car and we had to move them.

But it’s usually okay, because I have the Mom Mobile, and I know how to use it.  It’s a 2004 Toyota Sienna.  I’ve put 200,000 miles on it.  If you are ever driving before 8 am and you see a woman in a minivan with hand prints and/or dog prints on the windows and a school sticker on the bumper, and that woman looks as grim and determined as John Wayne in “True Grit,” holding the reins in his teeth and firing a rifle with the other, here’s some advice:  Get out of the way.  Every morning in America, millions of minivans and SUVs rocket toward schools.  Maybe the kid, like Josh, is putting on his socks and shoes in there.  Maybe the mom, like me, is quizzing her kid on geography or spelling, eyes never leaving the road.  When Blair and Andy were in high school, many’s the time I would sign some form that needed a parent (forging Mark’s name if it needed both), or scrawl an excuse for the tardy slip while Blair held the wheel.  My kids have all come up through the ranks as co-pilots.  “Andy, I need my sunglasses.”  Andy whips out the case, holds it at just the perfect height, while I take off my glasses and make the switch.  “Shades deployed,” he will report.  Co-pilots know that when Mommy goes to the ATM, it’s their job to get the card out, be prepared to take the receipt and cash and put them in my wallet, and zip the purse.  When we’re at the drive-through, they have the correct change ready by the time we get to the window.

So, our ride to Mile High Middle School goes something like this:  Shades deployed.  Hold on tight as we go over the major potholes in our driveway (I have an estimate from a paving company ready to sign, but first we need to fix the roof).  Go as fast as reasonably possible on our dirt road, speed up when we hit the street, have our morning prayer for the family said by the time we get to the stop sign, so I can make that big left onto Williamson Valley Road, a four-lane feeder that will get me toward town.  Speed up around the curves where the traffic cops don’t hide, slow down where they have been known to lurk.  Thread the needle between someone in the turn lane and someone in the right lane.  I’m coming up on the elementary school, which has its own crazed moms and road-clogging minivans clogging the left lane.   Left on Iron Springs, where I can usually zip through traffic like Sandra Bullock driving the bus in “Speed.”  There are a lot of oldsters in Prescott, pleasant retirees — around 8 am is middle of the morning for many — heading to the grocery store, not a care in the world, moseying along and enjoying life.  Meanwhile, I’ve escalated to Steve McQueen in “Bullitt” status, my Defcon 3, except I’m not driving through San Francisco, and instead of the zippy jazz soundtrack, I’ve either got classical music, calming smooth jazz, or if it’s really stressful, the spa channel on satellite radio going.  Also, we’re buckled up.

“Josh, check the time.”  Josh, a good co-pilot, knows this does not mean the car’s clock, which I keep 14 minutes fast as a buffer from life, but the accurate one on my phone.   Molly the Lab, taking up the whole back seat, is oblivious.  She’s biding her time waiting for the much slower drive home, when I roll down the window and she gets to stick her head out.  (Stanley, our Cocker Spaniel rescue, doesn’t really like the car and stays at home.  His choice, he’s always welcome to go, and we always ask.)

Next week, major milestone,  I am getting a new car.  Well, new to me.  It’s a 2007 Honda Pilot, with only 75,000 miles on it.  It is very clean.  It does not smell like chicken nuggets, or fries, or spilled soda.  There is no dog hair.  No empty water bottles rattling around.  No hand sanitizer or Starbucks napkins in the glove compartment (fun fact: Starbucks napkins are really soft and great for nose-blowing if there’s no Kleenex).   It has never hauled members of Blair’s varsity girl’s soccer team or Andy’s cross-country team, never had Josh’s smelly hockey bag left there in the hot sun.  That’s okay.  We’ll break it in.   It’s going to be a great Mom Mobile II.

 

This post and all blog content Ⓒ Copyright Janet Farrar Worthington.