In the words of the venerable Tom Waits, "You know the story. Here it comes again."
Today
6:15 - Wake up.
6:30 - Make Wolfgang's lunch because he forgot to do it last night.
6:30 - Help Gunther pack his football gear.
6:40 - Get ready for work.
6:40 - Say goodbye to Wolfgang, remind him of today's afterschool schedule.
6:45 - Supervise the walking & feeding of the dogs.
7:00 - Wake up Otto, help him choose picture day clothes, fix his hair.
7:15 - Say goodbye to Gunther, remind him of today's afterschool schedule.
7:45 - Remember that I need the minivan today. Switch David's briefcase to my car.
7:50 - Pack the minivan with football gear, the saxophone, my lunch.
8:00 - Get Otto on the bus, remind him of today's afterschool schedule.
8:02 - Call Gramps to remind him that I'm bringing over Gunther's football gear.
8:10 - Drop off saxophone at Gunther's school.
8:15 - Drop off the football gear at Grammy and Gramps'.
8:20 - Call a friend on the way to work - it's been forever since I called.
8:35 - Feel good. Feel real good. The family is dispatched. Everyone has everything they need and knows everything they need to know to keep our world running smoothly. And who made it all happen? Who got everything done? Yes, that'd be me.
8:35 - Arrive at work. Realize that I left my laptop at home. I am useless without it.
And there you have it.
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
With a little help from my neighbors ... please ...
My kids must really stink. They must smell so bad that if they were to get in your car, you'd be hard pressed to ever remove the stench.
Or maybe it's our minivan that stinks. Maybe it smells so bad that if your child was to ride in it to school, he'd have his own personal PigPen cloud and have to be sent to the nurse to be disinfected.
Or maybe it's not the smell of the vehicle but the speed at which it is driven. Maybe I drive so fast and so recklessly that if you were to let your child get into the car with me, you'd wish you'd called that phone number on the TV for some of that Gerber baby life insurance.
It's got to be one of these three things. Why else would parents be so damned resistant to carpooling?
They'd rather make 4 trips back and forth to the school in the span of an hour to accommodate all their kids' events than share a ride with the Wallachs.
They'd rather wake up at an ungodly hour on Sunday morning to drive their kid to a football game across the state - just to get there and have nothing to do for an hour in the rain before the game starts and the rest of the family arrives - than share a ride with the Wallachs.
They'd rather have 3 cars leave our street at the same time every morning to go to the same place to drop kids off - only to turn right around and come back home - than share a ride with the Wallachs.
I don't get it. We waste time and gas. We get frazzled and rush from one thing to the other. It really could be much easier if parents would only let it.
But, no. Maybe they feel that they must always be present and involved in their kids' lives. Maybe they are so kidcentric that they think they owe it to their kids to shuttle them around. Or maybe they don't want to look like they can't manage this life they've created.
Either that, or we really do stink.
Or maybe it's our minivan that stinks. Maybe it smells so bad that if your child was to ride in it to school, he'd have his own personal PigPen cloud and have to be sent to the nurse to be disinfected.
Or maybe it's not the smell of the vehicle but the speed at which it is driven. Maybe I drive so fast and so recklessly that if you were to let your child get into the car with me, you'd wish you'd called that phone number on the TV for some of that Gerber baby life insurance.
It's got to be one of these three things. Why else would parents be so damned resistant to carpooling?
They'd rather make 4 trips back and forth to the school in the span of an hour to accommodate all their kids' events than share a ride with the Wallachs.
They'd rather wake up at an ungodly hour on Sunday morning to drive their kid to a football game across the state - just to get there and have nothing to do for an hour in the rain before the game starts and the rest of the family arrives - than share a ride with the Wallachs.
They'd rather have 3 cars leave our street at the same time every morning to go to the same place to drop kids off - only to turn right around and come back home - than share a ride with the Wallachs.
I don't get it. We waste time and gas. We get frazzled and rush from one thing to the other. It really could be much easier if parents would only let it.
But, no. Maybe they feel that they must always be present and involved in their kids' lives. Maybe they are so kidcentric that they think they owe it to their kids to shuttle them around. Or maybe they don't want to look like they can't manage this life they've created.
Either that, or we really do stink.
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