by Cathy
We have the luxury and the disadvantage of living close to my childrens' school.
Other kids need to wake up at the ass-crack of dawn in order to be shuttled to bus stops where they have to wait to be picked up by the school bus that will no doubt make numerous other similar stops before depositing those kids at the door of the school.
My kids? Have it pretty lucky. Why is this bad? Because with almost certainty, we are borderline tardy every. single.day. It's a bad routine we've gotten ourselves into and we are NOT proud of it. We are, after all, a seven minute commute away.
Let's work backwards:
Eight-thirty is when the final school bell rings, but they need to be in their respective homerooms by 8:25. That means we should leave the house by 8:05 if they want abundant, leisurely time to go to their lockers first, gab with friends and unload/change shoes, etc. The problem is that they don't roll out of bed until 7:30. Therewithin, the problem lies.
We've tried everything. Waking them up earlier is counterproductive because they see they are being awoken early and lounge in bed for those "five more minutes" despite our threats and rants. If I've had a dollar for every time we've said:
They're going to bed too late at night!
They need to get in bed earlier!
We need to wake them up earlier!
Tonight we are going to bed early!
Even *I* am getting tired of hearing myself speak.
Don't get me wrong, we've made concerted efforts where we all really rally together and get to school in time with the rest of America's children. But that lasts for a week, tops. Then we are back to our old habits.
Every morning we screech up to the drop-off door, usually the last car to do so. (The doorman knows our car and patiently waits for it - although we are plowing towards while flashing our headlights from blocks away so he doesn't shut the door and send us the way of the main office, where a tardy slip will no doubt be issued. But the drop-off door isn't always a sure bet.
"I got a tardy today," said Bella to me once.
"But, why? We made it to the drop-off door just in time!" I defended.
"Yeah but mom, I need to be in my advisory room BY 8:25," she says.
"But I thought if you got to the school by 8:30 and you make the drop-off door, you don't have to go through the main door and get a tardy."
"NO! My teacher STILL sent me to the main office for a tardy because I wasn't in the room by 8:25."
Dang. We're Johnny-come-latelys no matter WHICH door we enter. And what's worse? We hustle, bustle, stress, fly, go hungry, forget necessities just to rush our way to school and STILL be late. And by how much? By FIVE stinking minutes. It baffles me - and I've said this over and over as well - that we can't get our shit together by FIVE minutes so that we can be on time.
The other day, I saw a car with these plates:
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I laughed out loud at the notion that misery truly does love company. Greeks and Latins are known for being on "their" time (i.e. late) so together, yo, we're definitely tarde. And some are more proud of this than others.
