School drop off

It's the first day of the new school routine
Dropping the boy at before school care, dropping the girl at day care and going to work.

And I have an 8:30 meeting.

I pull out of the driveway at 7:30 am with both kids strapped in and munching a Gosselin breakfast. I have the boy’s backpack, the backpack has the boy’s lunch. We’re good.

School drop off is a total mystery, I made a mental note of the street to take – I’ll park near where I was when we dropped the boy off.

I’m expecting bedlam, and the street is deserted. No people walking around and ample parking.

Odd.

I know I’m supposed to take the boy to the cafeteria – those were my instructions. I start heading for the door closest to the familiar, box-like appendage sticking out of the west side of the school.

The boy tells me we are headed to the wrong door. I figure, he’s done this before – so I follow his lead. We go down the stairs towards the door on the east side of the school. We get to the door, and it’s locked.

On the other side of the door, I see a teacher walking by who stops and gives us inaudible directions. My confused expression makes it clear I’m not getting what she’s saying.

Exasperated, she points with her arm to the west end of the school and repeats her inaudible directions.

The visual message gets through. We turn and head west.

---Bit of a comment here.

The school starts after 8am. This conflicts with virtually all work schedules known to man. If the school started classes at 7:45 or 7:30 a lot of lives would be simplified. Plus, I would not have to pay someone to watch my child for a half an hour before school every day.

That’s a systemic issue – not really the point – I’m concerned with execution here. The before school care is not run by the school. This is made clear by every school staffer you speak to.

“We don’t have anything to do with that.”

Now, I get that the school staff is not affiliated with the before school care people. I get that they don’t want to assume the responsibilities or liabilities that go along with caring for children in the hours before and after school.

But here’s the thing: Don’t act as if being asked about this care is somehow a burden to you. Don’t pretend that there is anything unreasonable in a person asking a school staffer about this service.
And for crying out loud – stop acting as if this service has nothing to do with the school.

No, you don’t have anything to do with this service – you only

• Receive my children from this service before school
• Deliver my children to this service after school
• Allow this service to take place at your facility

I mean, why the hell would anyone at the school know the slightest thing about it?

More to the point – this service benefits enormously from the school lending it an air of respectability. If this was child care in an offsite facility I’d have all kinds of other concerns:

• Is the facility safe?
• How will they handle transportation?
• What kind of security exists?

The fact that this care takes place in a school means those concerns are at least minimized. I know a school will not have power tools, rabid dogs, or circus carnies on the grounds. I know that if the child care person was showing R rated movies or passing out needles, there would be a high probability that someone would notice.

This service is leaps and bounds more acceptable in my sight simply because it occurs on school grounds. The school helped sell this service to me.

So - enough with the “Not my job” attitude, eh?

--where was I?

Ah yes. The three of us (with little e still carrying her cup of cereal) once again traverse the length of the school and walk up to another unlabeled, closed door and take a guess.

The door opens. Hooray. I’m at least at the right end.
We walk in. The instructions I had were “it’s by the principal’s office.”

Now, I don’t know if the cafeteria and the gym are the same thing. What is near the principal’s office is clearly a gym. And it’s packed with kids who are easily 12 years old.

As a parent of a five year old, I view 12 year olds like wildlife. On their own – they are perfectly pleasant. But I’m not leaving my son in room full of them.

I find no signs and no staff, so I start looking elsewhere. A few steps down the hall later, the boy tells me this is the wrong direction. We turn back towards the zoo and I go looking for a keeper.

While I’m doing this another parent streaks into view – dragging a child about the size of my son. I’m hopeful. Perhaps she knows where she is going.

She doesn’t. She is, however, at a higher level of frustration than I am and marches into the zoo. I hear her ask in a loud voice “Is this where before school care is?”

Now I see the keepers. They were inside the room just out of sight. This New Parent is talking to one of them. A balding middle-aged guy. Baldy shrugs and says something unhelpful. Behind him, another keeper says “I think they’ve moved to the teacher’s lounge.”

A third keeper shows solidarity with Baldy: they roll their eyes and say “It’s always something…”

New Parent is off like a shot and the boy and I try to follow. Little e is not in the mood to go fast. Anyway, she dropped a Cheerio and needs to pick it up.

Eventually we get to about the mid-point of the school when I see New Parent coming towards me, sans child. “They’re in the art room,” she says. “The middle school principle is kind of a…” she flops her hand around to imply: Dork.

I thank her.

We then go to the art room and there are a few kids sitting around a table with games and stuff. There’s a Nice Young Man who explains that when the school needs the gym the before school kids get booted into the art room. He shows me the sign up/sign out sheet and tells me he’s going to take the kids outside in a little while.

I tell him “It’s a good thing that the middle school thought to bump afterschool care on the second day. No chance of confusion there.”

He grins.

The boy gives me a hug and one of the kids tells him where to put his backpack. I leave.

Little e and I go to the nearest exit – the locked door we’d tried first. It opens to let us out and we walk back to the car.

It’s 8:05.

I’m twenty minutes from day care and day care is ten minutes from work. Parking is seven minutes from my desk. I call my team leader and tell them I’m going to be late. “Around 8:45” I say hopefully.

Usually, when I am late I start envisioning the forces of Murphy’s law sizing up my situation and deciding on tactics. It’s a delicate balancing act. Too few delays, I might show up on time. Too many, and their intervention becomes obvious (“Oh come on… a herd of cattle?”).

Today – their balance starts out pretty good. A train crossing. An ambulance delay. Traffic jam outside a school zone.

Then they get a bit greedy. A moving truck that backs out of a driveway blocking two lanes. It goes back and forth repeatedly because the driver is OCD and insists on having equal pavement on both sides of his truck when he parks.

The car in front of me stops to let pedestrians cross in front of them. These people are a half block away but this person is patient. “I’m in no hurry and I’m sure no one behind me is either…”

And then we’re at day care. Little e has (of course) taken off her shoes and socks, because its fun. So I re-shoe her and get her inside (where I then remove her shoes and put her in slippers). My watch says 8:30 and the day care administrator strikes up a conversation about web design.

Web design discussions… like crack… must resist….

I’m out the door by 8:35.

And realize I’m parked in. My day care, there is one driveway. You pull up to the house, somebody could park you in. Hasn’t happened to me in months.

Today’s the day.

So, I sit in my care for ten minutes. Because the parent who parked me in hasn’t tracked that they parked someone in. They’re in no hurry. I’m not mad at them. This is systemic, everybody gets a turn. Only way to avoid this is to park on a busy street which I hate –

But did it have to be today?

The parent comes out, apologizes and I’m off to work. Murphy’s done his damage, so the rest of the trip is without a hitch.

I hit my meeting at 9:05.