Enjoy the Ride

by Cathy

If you read this blog enough (which I hope you do!) you know that my family, we of Greek and Latin descent, are always running late. Part of it is innate due to stereotypical tardy traits within our cultures and the rest is, well, we tend to be a little slow.

Since this tardiness would be expected in our respective countries, it's not very well accepted here by my kids' school, and with very good reason. Despite what is accepted elsewhere, we need to be respectful of peoples' schedules and time in general. It's a horrible habit to fall into and extremely difficult to break once in the cycle - a cycle which I must say I was drawn into by my husband after we got married. No matter how ready and on time you are, if the person you are with is late, you are BOTH late and your efforts are for crap.

That said, I have declared a sense of urgency in our house in the mornings. I gave my kids a specific time to be in the kitchen for breakfast; I explained that they had to work backwards from there to determine how much time they need to lollygag, get dressed, fight over hair accessories, put on earrings, find matching socks, pack their bags, make their beds, and set their alarm accordingly, which, by the way, includes two nine-minutes snooze sessions built in to make it feel as though they "got more sleep".

We did well for a few days until yesterday morning. We ALL had to be out of the house at the same time, (which normally doesn't happen) so my husband and I had to get ready while the girls went on with their schedules without being reminded a bajillion times to watch the clock or go eat breakfast and "What time is it, girls??!!" Naturally, we ended up leaving the house later than our newly appointed non-late time deadline so it was a race to get to school before they closed those doors.

Needless to say, I was upset. And grumpy. And annoyed. And just plain frustrated. Therefore, I was short-tempered with everyone in the car while I imagined the tsk-tsk, shaking-my-head looks my kids would be receiving by their teachers. Adding to my mood was the fact that traffic was extraordinarily backed-up and we encountered a garbage truck inching its way in front of us down the side street we took, only to put on its flashers, pop into reverse and BEEP BEEP BEEP its backside into an alley with more three-point turns than an ice skating routine.

Right when I thought I was going to jump out of the car and run my kids to school on piggyback, I heard the laughter of the girls in the back seat as they volleyed a pink balloon that was found in the car. Ari started reciting lines from Despicable Me (one of the girls' favorite movies) in Gru's Russian accent and Bella joined in. They were actually pretty funny and as they went on, the act got funnier as the accents got stronger and more animated.

Suddenly, I found myself laughing. Laughing at how goofy my daughters can be; laughing because of course we have the world's slowest garbage truck driven by a first-timer in front of us on the way to school; laughing that we have blown-up balloons sitting in our car willy-nilly; laughing that said balloon lurched forward into the windshield, floating around in our faces as we screeched up to the school door yet again and the girls scurried out, yelling their goodbyes through the open door; laughing at the funny irony of it all.

I let go of the anger and the frustration and what I could not control in that moment and just went with the flow. It reminded me of that scene in Parenthood (one of MY favorite movies and a must-see for all parents) when Steve Martin allows himself to get whisked away in the thrill of going with life's flow - like being on a roller coaster, after grandma tells him:

"You know, when I was nineteen, Grandpa took me on a roller coaster. Up, down, up, down. Oh, what a ride! I always wanted to go again. You know, it was just so interesting to me that a ride could make me so frightened, so scared, so sick, so excited, and so thrilled all together! Some didn't like it. They went on the merry-go-round. That just goes around. Nothing. I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it."

Closing your eyes and fighting it isn't as much fun as throwing your hands up in the air and enjoying the ride.

Rushing to be Late

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:

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.