Oops

It's day 3 of Jaxon's Kindergarten school year, and I had expected to move on to other blog-worthy news. However, we experienced another milestone this morning, and sadly this milestone was rather unexpected. So, I don't have pictures. Day 2 (Friday), Jax rode the bus for the first time. Day 3 (Monday), Jax missed the bus for the first time! I guess the pickup time we were assigned was more of a guideline than a hard rule. If the bus driver is 10 minutes ahead of schedule, we'll that's good for her & bad for us. She finishes her shift early, and we rush to drive Jax to school.

Truth be told, it wasn't much of rush. His bus pickup is scheduled for 7:45AM, and school doesn't start until 8:30AM. That gives us 45 minutes to make the 15 minute drive. No sweat! It's not a habit we're looking to form, but should we repeat this morning's unfortunate experience, Jax won't be accumulating tardies on his record. I know...everyone breathes a huge sigh of relief.

Today, Anh was the lucky parent and got to drive Jax to school. I'm not sure whether he felt lucky, but trust me, it's best that Anh assumed the duty because he at least resembles something slightly human in the morning. I need a little more work than rolling out of bed and throwing on clothes & baseball cap. We don't want to scare the poor little children at the elementary school.

After dropping off Jax, Anh gave me a full report on the experience, just as I've done for him with the details of the afternoon pickup. In the afternoon, it's a fairly organized process involving three lines of vehicles in the school parking lot. There are teachers and coaches to direct traffic, 5th graders serve as the Safety Patrol responsible for loading the younger children into your car, and for the most part the system prevents street traffic from coming to a standstill and manages to get everyone home in a timely manner.

I assumed there would be a similar morning routine or that given the staggered arrival time, there would a smooth moving single-file line of cars pulling up to drop off children. That's what we witnessed when we took Jax to school the first day. Sure traffic was a little backed up, but that's to be expected during the first week. Well...ALL politeness is evidently out the window after week 1! During week 2, it's cutthroat!

Traffic was backed up as parents fought to turn into the school's parking lot from all directions. Someone was directing traffic, but the surly crowd deemed him to be ineffective and started taking matters into their own hands. That, obviously, lead to flaring tempers as drivers were cut0ff when making their turn by other crazed parents obsessed with getting their child to school on time. Anh said it was ugly with lots of evil glares being shot back and forth between parents. You could read people's lips and facial expressions and imagine the profanity that the innocent children were overhearing as they anxiously awaited the chance to run from the car and join the more mature crowd of elementary-aged playmates.

One can only imagine what week 3 will bring. I picture parents flashing gang signs and fist-fights over perceived wrongs in the parking lot. The police may be on scene either to curb flaring tempers or to haul off the parents that can't reel in their emotions. I think we can all agree that it's best for everyone if Jaxon doesn't miss the bus!